The Jerome lives on.
The Jerome is a decades-old men’s college basketball conference tournament pick-em contest. Here’s the deal: You need to pick the winners of each conference tournament. No need to dive into the depths of analytics. If your team wins, you score points.
We keep it straightforward – you, a Google Form, and your picks for all 32 conference tournaments. That’s it. No spreads, no metrics, no overthinking. Just pick the winners and let the madness unfold.
How do I score points? #
The Jerome is a bastion of simplicity; it is a brief reprieve from spreads and analytics, offering college basketball in its most unadulterated form. The scoring system is straight-up, and you win points based on whether your team advances to its conference tournament championship.
For each of your picks in their conference tournament:
+0
Does not reach championship
+2
Loses championship
+5
Wins championship
+7
1) Wins championship, and
2) not a top two seed, and
3) plays max two games on home court
The most points you can score for a single team is seven, with no penalties for incorrect picks (and in fact, a selection will be required for every conference tournament).
What about tiebreakers? #
To break ties, each submission form includes three tiebreaker questions, making a total of six. Your combined score across all six will determine your tiebreaker score. These questions will be numeric (e.g., total points scored in the ACC championship game). Should ties persist, questions will be selected at random and scored until a winner emerges.
How do I participate? #
Submissions are split into two "waves," with deadlines based on the start dates of the tournaments. On Wednesday, February 28th at 6:00 p.m. EST, a submission form for the first wave will go live on this website. It will also be tweeted by me. The second form will go live on Monday, March 4th at 12:00 p.m. EST.
Wave 1: #
Due: Sunday, March 3rd @ 11:59 p.m. EST
Wave 2: #
Due: Sunday, March 10th @ 11:59 p.m. EST
To find which conferences are associated with which wave, please consult the waves pages.
Leaders #
When the competition begins, a live leaderboard will populate here.
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