Every entry lives inside a pool — there's no entering without one. Pick whichever applies to you:

Already have an invite link? Click it. It'll ask you to create an account if you don't have one yet, then send you straight into building your bracket inside that pool. Skip the rest of this part.

Starting your own pool instead?

1. Create an account — fill in four fields: your full name, email, cell number, and a password. That's the whole step, about a minute.
2. Go to Play → Pools, type a name under Create a Pool, and click Create Pool. You're sent straight into building your own bracket inside it.
3. Back on My Pools, click Manage next to it to get its invite link. Share that with your group — each person creates an account, clicks the link, and builds their bracket the same way you just did.

1. Build your bracket — pick 22 players total, split across four seed groups (6 from seeds 1–4, 5 from seeds 5–8, 4 from seeds 9–12, 3 from seeds 13–16), plus 4 head coaches. Coaches can come from any team, even two from the same region.
2. Set your tiebreaker — your guess at the combined score of the Championship game. Closest without going over wins; if everyone goes over, lowest score wins.
3. Venmo $20 to @TheDerekBlum, with your email and bracket name in the comment — that's how payment gets matched to your entry. $20 covers hosting; it isn't a payout.
4. Your entry stays editable until the tournament goes live — come back and change picks any time before then. After paying, check Paid Entries to confirm you're in.
5. Waiting on approval: unless it's your own pool, your entry sits pending until the pool owner approves it — then it shows up on that pool's leaderboard. It's already scoring on the main leaderboard the whole time either way.

Scoring: 1 point per player per real-game point they score; 10 points per coach per team win.