• Join the 2017 TGT Tournament Challenge Group

    March Madness is upon us and that means it is time for the 2017 TGT Tournament Challenge on ESPN.com. It is free to join the group and the winner of the Tournament Challenge group will receive their choice of either a $20 PSN, XBL, or Nintendo card if they are not a site Donator. If a site Donator wins, they will receive a free game of their choosing (up to $60 value). (Must be Donator by March 22, 2017.)

    Feel free to invite friends and family to join the group. The more, the merrier! Continue on for a direct link to the Tournament Challenge group and then share your Final Four predictions with the community.

    In addition to the Men's Tournament Challenge group, there is also TGT groups for the Women's Tournament Challenge. There is no prize for that group, simply pride.


    ESPN (Men's) Tournament Challenge - Winner receives choice of $20 PSN or XBL Card

    Get in on the excitement of this year's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Compete against other fans as you fill out a bracket and earn points for every correct pick! If you score the most points, you'll have a chance to win the grand prize of a $10,000 Amazon Gift Card and a trip to the 2017 Maui Invitational. Best of all, it's free to play and win. [Printable bracket available here - PDF]

    Get in the action now! Group: The Gaming Tailgate



    ESPN (Women's) Tournament Challenge

    Get in on the excitement of this year's NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament. Compete against other fans as you fill out a bracket and earn points for every correct pick! Get a group together and earn plenty of bragging rights amongst your friends by winning it all. Best of all, it's free to play and win.

    Get in the action now! Group: The Gaming Tailgate
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Join the 2017 TGT Tournament Challenge group & Tourney Discussion! started by cdj View original post
    Comments 56 Comments
    1. bdoughty's Avatar
      bdoughty -
      Quote Originally Posted by cdj View Post
      there is also TGT groups for the Women's Tournament Challenge. There is no prize for that group, simply pride.
      Sending copy of this comment to NOW.
    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      Quote Originally Posted by bdoughty View Post
      Sending copy of this comment to NOW.
      At this point, that bracket is simply picking who loses to UConn.
    1. bdoughty's Avatar
      bdoughty -
      Filled out the Men's bracket and went with a lot of upsets, including West Virginia choking, like they did in the Big 12 Championship and in Football and in life...
    1. bdoughty's Avatar
      bdoughty -
      Quote Originally Posted by cdj View Post
      At this point, that bracket is simply picking who loses to UConn.
      UConn's second team might be the only one that could keep it close. Though playing in a weak conference could hurt them as they are used to 40 point blowouts.
    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      Went 'Nova, 'Zona, Kansas, Kentucky in the Final Four with VU repeating. Needless to say I'm not too content or happy with my picks, so I'll be revising them tomorrow & Tuesday.

      'Nova was a consistent underachiever so I'm worried I am forgetting their past by picking them to win again.
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes -
      Damn, time for this already. Time to see if I can make it a perfect 3 for 3 sweep after winning the NFL Pick'em and the Bowl Mania contests.

      And I have a feeling I'll be changing my picks multiple times. There is just no one I'm likely to be happy with, no truly far and away better teams like in some years past.

      Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
    1. bjrod9's Avatar
      bjrod9 -
      After a long time of hiding, I will be participating in this contest.


      Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
    1. bdoughty's Avatar
      bdoughty -
      Women's bracket is up. I only picked one upset in the first round, wonder how that was.

      UConn smashes ND in the finals.
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes -
      Even if one was interested in watching the women's tournament, there is pretty much zero reason to do so, because UConn is just going to make everyone their bitch like every year.

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    1. bdoughty's Avatar
      bdoughty -
      Quote Originally Posted by SmoothPancakes View Post
      Even if one was interested in watching the women's tournament, there is pretty much zero reason to do so, because UConn is just going to make everyone their bitch like every year.
      I always keep an eye on it, especially when OU is in it. They are a 6 seed this year, so not expecting much but are in the OKC region.

      UConn has had a few close calls, even struggled to beat Tulane on the road. I would prefer to see Notre Dame (of all teams) beat them. Poor Irish have lost 4 of the last 6 title games.

      Screw it, I just changed my bracket having Notre Dame beat UConn in the title game, 72-70.

      Win one for the Muffet!
    1. JBHuskers's Avatar
      JBHuskers -
      My Final Four is

      Finals are beating

      And is already in trouble with the 16-seed South Dakota State

      First two games today go down to the wire, that's what I love about this time of year!
    1. bdoughty's Avatar
      bdoughty -
      West Virginia did not choke, my bracket is officially screwed. The Mount is holding it's own against Nova early.
    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      Not enough upsets on day one for my blood, but hopefully there will be some today.
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes -
      Yeah, too much chalk so far, though my bracket is happy. Only missed Northwestern, Virginia and St. Mary's.

      And even that only hurt very little as I had Vanderbilt, VCU and UNC Wilmington all losing in the next round,

      Today is where it may hurt depending on the outcome of two or three games.

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    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      It may just me, but the tourney doesn't feel the same or as exciting/fun now that it is so commercialized.....generic courts, huge March Madness at midcourt, everyone and their mother doing brackets/pool analysis, ESPN with non-stop coverage following bracket reveal (including that mind-numbing 24-hour bracket show), the NCAA even promoting brackets, etc. It's almost like since everyone who doesn't follow college sports thinks the tourney is cool, it's not as cool anymore. The games are fun, it's just everything else around it that's not so much IMO.
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes -
      Yeah, I've been noticing that. Now it seems like every single sports related site does brackets. Before it was only Yahoo, ESPN, maybe CBS, now you get bombarded by like 50 different websites and apps about how you can fill out brackets on their site or app.

      Even just 10 years ago it was nice, just a small pool with friends, now everyone does a bracket, every workplace seems to do pools, you see people filling out brackets for their damn dogs and other dumb stuff. Or when they fill out brackets, they pick teams based on colors, or how cute the nickname is or something equally stupid in my opinion. When I do a bracket, I'm trying to legitimately pick based on which team I actually think is better and will win, not which is cuter between the Bobcats and Jackrabbits. I don't know, maybe that makes me a sports snob, but I enjoyed it better when everyone involved was involved for the love of the game and the challenge of trying to pick a successful and winning bracket based on knowledge of the teams, records and stats.

      And I agree aboit the courts. The NCAA has literally killed all individuality about the venues. They all look exactly the same in layout and will every step of the tournament, just different colors and maybe a slight addition or word change here and there. Watching games yesterday, just based on TV, I couldn't even tell where any of the damn games were being played at! Before, the location was always prominently display, the court identity of the host school and their logos were still incorporated into the design, now it's just an ugly, ungodly bland and boring court design with essentially zero identification of location or host school.

      And I've completely ignored the bracket talk last couple years. That stupid stuff on ESPN, I even completely skipped the bracket unveil this year, I just waited until afterwards to see the entire bracket for myself and see the last four in/out.

      For me, I'll always follow March Madness, I'll always do brackets, because I follow and love the sport. I watch college basketball all season, hell, I try to watch as many of the games as I can when they do that 24 hours marathon in November with games playing all night and all morning and afternoon at campuses around the country. Some of those 2 or 4am mid-major showdowns actually end being pretty entertaining!

      Every year, I take the first two days of the tournament off so I can just relax at home and watch 12 to 13 hours of nonstop basketball. Add in my yearly ritual of spending the first day's noon games at a sports bar with a couple friends, watching the entirety of the first game or two and finally leaving around 3 or 4pm and head home for more basketball and more beer. Even in years when those friends couldn't make it, hell, I still went and sat up at the bar instead of a normal table for a couple hours, enjoy some lunch and some beer and watch some basketball. That's how I spent the entire Notre Dame-Princeton game yesterday.

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    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes -
      And the blood bath begins. SMU just screwed me right in the ass.

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    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      6 Creighton loses to 11 Rhode Island, but this seemed to be the most predicted/likely upset heading into the tournament.
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes -
      Yep, I had Rhode Island as my top expected upset, followed right behind by Xavier over Maryland and Mid Tennessee over Minnesota, thankfully all three didn't let me down. If only UNC Wilmington and Kansas State had been able to do the same.

      Now, since I forgot to dial things back a little bit and change my second round pick from Rhode Island to Oregon, they better keep it up and reach the Sweet 16.

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    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes -
      There we go! First game of the day, and Notre Dame just shafted the hell out of me. There goes my first Elite Eight pick.

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