Thanks to the online revolution, students can enter the intramural NCAA Basketball Pick-em competition even if they’re in Cancun sipping margaritas from their hotel balcony.

This year, all students need in order to participate is an Internet connection.

“No matter where you are March 13, 14 or 15, as long as you can get to a computer, you can enter,” said Linda Marticke, intramural coordinator.

In the past, the tournament and Spring Break have often coincided, which meant many students were out of town when they needed to turn in their hand-written bracket selections.

Marticke said she thinks the online setup will increase the amount of student participation for the event. Last year, 106 students participated in the NCAA Basketball Pick-em event. Marticke said she expects at least 200 entries this year – and probably more – because of the online set-up.

Going online has other benefits, as well. In the past, students had to wait until the end of the tournament to find out their placing in the event. With the online version, participants can check their progress on a daily basis and will know as soon as the first round is over how many picks they got right.

The intramural coordinators already witnessed the success of NCAA Bowl Pick-em in its first year. This event also took place online and had 368 participants. The ease and fun of online submissions played a part in the large number of participants, Marticke said. She said she expects the same result for the basketball edition.

For the basketball event, participants can fill out brackets for both the men’s NCAA tournament and the women’s NCAA tournament. The tiebreaker for each bracket will be the total score of the final game. For example, if someone believes the final score will be 70-50, 120 should be entered as the final score for the tiebreaker.

In the first round, participants are awarded one point for each game they pick correctly. Each correct pick in the second round gets two points, correct picks in the third round net three points and so on.

Marticke said that, over the years, she hasn’t seen any patterns develop in the brackets that are a sure bet for winners. Sometimes people just pick schools or mascots that they like and are often lucky. Other participants research their picks.

“For most of the people that win, I think they really pay attention,” Marticke said. “They know everything about all the teams. Does that mean they’re going to win? No, because there are always upsets.”

Marticke said she enjoys the upsets because they really separate the people who know a lot about college basketball from those who use the tournament seed numbers as the basis for their picks.

Luke Novak, sophomore in aerospace engineering, said he thinks moving the brackets online will make it easier to participate in the event by eliminating the hassle of turning in hard copies.

Novak won an intramural champion T-shirt in the event last year and plans to play again this year. He said participating in the NCAA Basketball Pick-em event makes the tournament more fun, because it gets students involved.

“You don’t necessarily need to know a lot about the teams,” Novak said. “It helps to know a lot, but some of it’s luck.”

Novak said some keys to success are picking the right upsets and paying attention to which teams are going into the tournament hot.

Sarah Mullen, senior in dairy science and agricultural business, also won an intramural T-shirt in the event last year.

Mullen also participated in the NCAA Bowl Pick-em last fall. She said that the event went well and thinks putting the brackets online for the basketball event will make it easier for students. Mullen will be in Argentina during Spring Break, but plans to turn in a bracket if she can find a computer with an Internet connection.

She encourages girls to participate in the tournament because there usually aren’t as many women participants, making it easier for women to win T-shirts. She also said that doing the women’s tournament bracket is a great way to have another chance to win.

“A lot of it is luck,” Mullen said. “Pick some fun upsets because they usually happen. The 12-5 games are usually pretty good [for upsets].”