Friends, UC Irvine fans, and all of the above.
The NIT Bracket Challenge is back.
You can find the bracket, along with first round sites and tip times, here. We will also post a picture at the bottom.
You can enter our NIT Bracket Challenge here.
We will post updates on this page.
Some ground rules:
- 1 point for every team correctly picked to advance to the second round.
- 2 points for every team correctly picked to advance to the quarterfinals.
- 4 points for every team correctly picked to advance to the final four.
- 8 points for every team correctly picked to advance to the championship.
- 16 points for correctly picking the champion.
- There will only be one tiebreaker this year. With the Final Four in Las Vegas, we’re going to go to a roulette wheel and take one roll. You will be asked to guess this number, and in the event of a tie, closest to the number wins (closest, period—you can go over). If it’s still tied after that, we will ask King Solomon to decide. If he doesn’t answer, or if he tells us to chop a baby in half, we will reject his advice and award a prize to all winners.
- All decisions by The Barking Crow regarding scoring and tiebreakers are final, and by joining this challenge, you agree to this.
- The winner, runner-up, and third-place finisher will receive prizes of decreasing value. The prizes are negotiable, but we hold final say. Past winners have received combinations of merchandise, future NIT tickets, and gift cards to storied American eateries (it turned out Sbarro doesn’t have gift cards—that was a low point for us). Last year’s winners haven’t received anything because we haven’t sent it to them yet. This is a bad look for us. Our apologies, last year’s winners: We will sweeten the deal for you and I promise you will receive your prizes eventually.
- All brackets must be received before the first game of the tournament tips off (looking like this is Tuesday at 7:00 PM EDT).
- One entry per email address.
Competing alongside you will be a number of celebrities. We’ll publish the whole A-List once the tournament’s underway, but for the moment, here’s something even more selective—the NIT List:
- NIT Stu – NIT Fan, The Barking Crow
- Ken Pomeroy – Founder, KenPom
- Mark Titus – Podcaster, The Mark Titus Show
- Mike Rutherford – Louisville Expert, Card Chronicle
- PFT Commenter – Podcaster, Pardon My Take, Macrodosing
- Alex Briseño – 2021 NIT Bracket Challenge Champion
- Fargo – Dog
We will keep you posted on the brackets and schools of these seven and all our other NIT-Listers. We’re gonna try to get in touch with Jay Wright. Wish us luck.
