March Madness Has Arrived

It's that time of year again, college basketball fans-March Madness! Selection Sunday is over and the play-in game starts Tuesday, March 16, at 7:30 PM Eastern Time when the Winthrop Eagles take on Arkansas-Pine Bluff to determine who wins the final 16 seeding. The tournament will begin Thursday, March 18.

Eleven conferences have two or more teams in the tournament. The conference represented by the most teams is the Big East with eight teams, followed by the Big 12 with seven teams and the ACC with six teams. Each of those conferences has a team that earned a #1 seed (Syracuse, Kansas, and Duke) and the final #1 seed goes to Kentucky of the SEC.

If you want to make the games even more exciting, you should fill out a bracket and test your basketball knowledge (or luck).

Time is of essence, so get started on your bracket. You can print off a bracket hereor you can sign up with one of several sites and fill out a bracket. You can join a bracket challenge with other Internet users or create a group with your friends or coworkers. Click the link to try out one of the following sites:

Yahoo College Basketball Tournament Pick'Em: You need to have an email account with Yahoo to participate in the Pick'Em and after you take care of that, you can either join a group or create your own. While you may sign up to play for bragging rights with your friends, you are also eligible to win a prize from Yahoo. If you create the best bracket, you win $10,000 and if you create a perfect bracket, you win $1,000,000. It's unlikely that you will walk away from this Pick'Em with cash, but at least there is a chance to win money from creating a bracket, so if your boss or spouse gives you a hard time for watching the games, you can let them know what's at stake.

ESPN 2010 NCAA Tournament Bracket Contest: Sign up for an ESPN account if you don't already have one and fill out your bracket. You can create a group or join one of many public groups. There are also cash prizes here here-if your bracket earns the most points, you will win $10,000 and $5,000 goes to the person with the second best bracket.

CBS Bracket Challenge: If you would like to compete for the chance to win a brand new car-a 2011 Infiniti M-then this is the bracket contest for you. Sign up for an account and fill out your brackets (you can submit up to three different brackets) and let the games begin. One perk of participating in the CBS Bracket Challenge is that you can watch live games from your bracket.

Good luck filling out those brackets and don't forget to look out for the upsets.