Okay, the prizes are as follows:
1st place - A TexasKaos t-shirt of your choosing from our Cafepress store (up to $30 value).
2nd & 3rd places - A TexasKaos bumper sticker from our Cafepress store.
I'm buying - I just want folks to play along because, like I said, I'm a total basketball nerd. =) Consider this an incentive.
The contest is open to anyone who has a TK account, or who registers for an account by 6pm this evening.
Ok, here's how we're going to do this. Personally, I HATE bracket contests that ask you to put the entire thing together at once. I don't think anyone can predict what's going to happen that far out. So, we're going to do our brackets round by round. So, in order to play, you have to put together your first round Eastern & Western conference brackets by 6pm tonight and post them in the comments here. Meaning you'll submit your bracket before play starts this evening. In each round, you need to predict the series winner *and* the game spread.
How to score points: For each conference bracket, you get 1 point if you correctly pick a series winner. 1 bonus point will be added if you correctly predict the game spread. You get 2 bonus points if you pick the winners in an entire conference bracket, and 3 bonus points if you correctly pick the game spread for the whole conference bracket. Basically, everyone is eligible to get a bunch of points in each round, which will hopefully make the competition fiercer and more fun. At the end of each round, we'll total up the points and make new brackets for the next round. There are three rounds plus the finals.
If this sounds confusing, let me illustrate it with an example. Let's say I predict this:
Round One, Western Conference:
Golden State V Dallas: Dallas wins 4-2
Denver v San Antonio: Denver wins 4-3
Houston v Utah: Utah wins 4-2
Phoenix v LA: Phoenix wins 4-1
The hypothetical result:
Dallas wins 4-1
Denver wins 4-3
Houston wins 4-1
Phoenix wins 4-2
Ok, using this hypothetical, I would get:
3 points for picking the correct series winners (Dallas, Denver, and Phoenix). I'd get 1 bonus point for correctly picking Denver's 4-3 win (the game spread). No other bonus points would be awarded. Make sense? I hope so. If not, drop a comment and ask for clarification.
Now, as I said, since everyone's already played one game, go ahead and factor that into your brackets. We will call that a gimme. =)
Here are the matchups. Remember to make a bracket for both conferences (don't worry, my eastern conference bracket is going to suck, too) and submit them by 6pm. Here are the matchups, seed numbers (in parens), and current standings:
Western Conference
Dallas Mavericks (1) v Golden State Warriors (8), GS leads 1-0
Utah Jazz (4) v Houston Rockets (5), Houston leads 1-0
San Antonio Spurs (3) v Denver Nuggets (6), Denver leads 1-0
Phoenix Suns (2) v Los Angeles Lakers (7), Suns lead 1-0
Eastern Conference
Detroit Pistons (1) v Orlando Magic (8), Detroit leads 1-0
Miami Heat (4) v Chicago Bulls (5), Bulls lead 1-0
Toronto Raptors (3) v New Jersey Nets (6), Nets lead 1-0
Cleveland Cavaliers (2) v Washington Wizards (7), Cavs lead 1-0
Just copy and paste that into a comment and list your picks.
P.S. I hope I've made this simple enough so that even folks who aren't big time fans can play. Also, remember these are "best of seven" series, so it takes 4 wins to get out of each round. =) |
