Are you smarter than an Admiral? Think you know more about basketball than Warrior Brad? Come March, there's only one tried-and-true way to sort the college basketball cognoscenti from the pretenders, and that's with ...
A BRACKET CHALLENGE!
Mr. Kensington has set up a Yahoo! group with an exceptionally clever name -- Anonymous Eagles, get it? -- so all of us can take turns bragging when we nail a 12-over-4 pick in the second round (or the third, or whatever it's called now) and cowering in shame when three of our Elite Eight picks bow out before the first Saturday games.
Want in? Of course you do. There might be a prize at the end -- a fine Scotch (unlikely), a four-pack of Sprecher root beer (slightly more likely), a signed glossy of Ruben Quevedo (most likely) -- but the most important reward is this: if you win the Bracket Challenge, you're authorized to end any debate in which you find yourself on AE over the next year with: "You are wrong, and I am right, because I am a BRACKET CHAMPION."
The deets:
Here's the link to the Yahoo! Tourney Pick 'Em page.
The Yahoo! group ID is 102479.
The password is buzz.
In the interest of getting as many people signed up as we can, I've asked Mr. K to modify the settings so we DON'T pick the Tuesday games, which would make your bracket due at about 11:00 a.m. (CST) Thursday morning. Please note: apparently, there's a glitch on Yahoo! right now where you can't pick the play-in game winners to advance past the second round. So if you think VCU or USC can give Georgetown a game, you'll probably have to log back in on Wednesday to make that pick.
Good luck. You'll need it.