betting on march madness

Track your teams from the beginning of March Madness into the sweet sixteen, right thru the elite eight and down the road to the final four! NCAA brackets showcase the college basketball teams that are playing their way to the finals and are an easy way to track the teams if you're in a pool or running one.
Keep up with March madness as the field of 64 in the NCAA brackets is narrowed down to the sweet sixteen (Thursday, March 24, 2005), elite eight (Saturday, March 26, 2005) and the final four (Saturday, April 2, 2005). Seeds are announced on Selection Sunday - March 13, 2005. CBS will televise the men's selection show at 5 p.m. (CST), check your local listings for the time in your area.
Print your blank March Madness Brackets here or check with Sportbet and they will post brackets immediately after the selections are announced. Game times will be announced shortly thereafter. The opening round in the NCAA Men's Division I begins on March 17th and the action continues until the NCAA Championship game is played on Monday, April 4th, 2005.
It doesn't look like U Conn will repeat as the 2005 champion. Will it be Illinois or Duke or another top ranked team? The competition is tough. Follow the college hoops action and get some assistance with your pools with these sites focused on the NCAA Brackets and the March Madness action...
HOW TO WIN YOUR MARCH MADNESS TOURNAMENT OR OFFICE POOL:
The overwhelming appeal of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, aka March Madness, is just that: the Madness.
Over 60 games played in just over three weeks, with the best playing the best all across the country and the unpredictable outcomes that ensue. Our infatuation with the Tournament is expressed in this nation's favorite office competition: The Office Pool.
But the notion that you're better off blindly selecting teams to help you fill out your bracket is a fallacy. There are trends that help predict outcomes and there are common characteristics among great, as well as dreadful, Tournament teams. Here now, an 11-point plan to help you get the edge on your Office Pool competition.
1. Throw out the Polls. From here on-out, we deal in hard numbers and not perception. So forget who's ranked No. 1 by the AP or who's not getting enough respect in the Coach's Poll. What matters now is: what good teams did you play, how did you play against them and where did you play them? Hey, the No. 1 ranked team heading into March Madness has won just 3 of the last 20 NCAA Tournaments and only one time since 1966 have the top 3 ranked teams all made the Final Four.
2.Printable March Madness Brackets click here! You can find Tournament brackets just about anywhere: online, in newspapers and church bulletins.
3. Read About.com's In-Depth Team Scouting Reports. Who the heck are the Vermont Catamounts? Well, we've put the hours in researching and grading teams so you don't have to -- now why let that go to waste? What you'll find is all 65 teams graded out on a scale of 1-10 in each of 10 distinct categories that are pivotal in predicting how well a team will perform at March Madness. We compile the ten scores, add or subtract Bonus Points and come to a final score for you to use when comparing teams.
4. Pick your Champion. With our team grades on screen and Bracket in hand, it's time to pick your Champion. Since you get progressively more points awarded to you for every game you get right as the tournament progresses, this will be your most important decision. As fired up as we all get for the opening weekend, whether you win or lose will depend entirely on how your picks perform on the final weekend. And although you've got to go with your gut on this, there are few hard facts to consider when picking your team:
1. 13 of the last 15 Champions have been either a 1- or 2-seed.
2. At least one 1-seed has made it to the Final Four each of the last 23 years.
3. Not since 1979 have two teams met in the Title Game having never been there before.
Lesson 1: Get conservative in mapping out the Final Four. For all the "Madness", a favorite usually wins it all in the end.
5. Find your Final Four Sleeper. Now that we've established the conservative reality of the Final Four, it's time to pick the one lesser-rated team that will make the Final Four. We're not talking about double-digit seeds here -- the lowest seed to ever make the Final Four was a No. 11 and after that a few No. 8's -- we're talking about a No. 3 or above seed who will break through to the Final weekend