The 2011 Digital NCAA Basketball Tourney: The First Four

Today is the first of our days unveiling matchups in this year's Digital NCAA Tourney. We'll start by breaking down the 4 play-in games for the tourney. Then we'll go region-by-region breaking down the field.

First, a reminder. These seeds were calculated using a weighted average between how the teams connect on social media, the level of access they give you to their program, the level of branding and emotion they deliver, the quality and depth of content, and (naturally) the intangibles... though it's digital so isn't everything intangible?

And finally, keep in mind that every team in this field of 68 is inspiring -- that's how they got here, to the big digital stage. And we can take great learnings from each of them.

Enjoy!

16-Hampton vs. 16-Arkansas Pine Bluff
This is a matchup of two conference champions, both of which lead by offering a clean design and a focus on getting you where they want to get you.

16-Hampton
Conference: MEAC
Website: http://www.hamptonpirates.com

How they got here: Won the MEAC's Automatic Bid by leveraging a clean design to connect directly with recruits. They hit you with a prominent "Join the Team. Get Recruited Here" call to action right from the comforts of the home page.



16-Arkansas-Pine Bluff
Conference: SWAC
Website: http://www.uapblionsroar.com

How they got here: Won the SWAC's Automatic Bid by pairing a clean design with a dynamic calendar that makes it pretty obvious when the action is happening.





16-South Carolina Upstate vs. 16- Liberty
Two teams that won their conferences show up in a 16-seed First Four game. That shows you just how tough this year's field is! Both squads find a way to add excitement around gametime, and they come at it from an entirely different standpoint.

16-South Carolina Upstate
Conference: Atlantic Sun
Website: http://www.upstatespartans.com

How they got here: Winner of the Atlantic Sun Conference's Bid. You have to dig for it, but the Spartans hit you with some great content from Coach Eddie Payne's website. Chief among the energy of this site is Traveling with the Spartans, a place where you can actually see what the team sees when they travel.



16-Liberty
Conference: Big South
Website: http://www.libertyflames.com

How they got here: Winner of the Big South's Automatic Bid. The Flames offer up an easy reminder of when the next game is, from a prominent countdown clock off the home page. They also pack together an athletics department social media widget!




15-Butler vs. 15-Indiana
This is one of those matchups I wish the NCAA Selection committee would bring out more often -- regional rivalries that don't get played in the regular season.

15-Butler
Conference: Horizon
Website: http://www.butlersports.com

How they got here: At-Large Bid. Strong play in the social media realm, as Butler does a strong job bringing their personality out across Facebook & Twitter.



15-Indiana
Conference: Big Ten
Website: http://www.iuhoosiers.cstv.com

How they got here: At-Large Bid. Indiana delivers good content, albeit tough to find inside a heavy recruiting virtual guide.





14 George Washington vs. 14-Middle Tennessee State
This matchup tells you a bit about the collective strength of the A10 and Sun Belt Conferences... or at least it tells you they have multiple bids.

14-George Washington
Conference: Atlantic 10
Website: http://www.gwsports.com

How they got here: At Large. Coach Hobbs gets you exactly what you need to understand once you hit his site -- what's the style of play? what's your philosophy? The challenge is that you have to get here to get this information.




14- Middle Tennessee State
Conference: Sun Belt
Website: http://www.goblueraiders.com

How they got here: At Large. The Blue Raiders give you easy, elegant access to their social media world. It's clean and it's clear where they want you to go.





Here's the bracket, updated.

Come back tomorrow as we dive into the first of our 4 regions...

As always, you can follow me on Facebook (here) or Twitter (I'm @pawlow34)

Andy

Digital Hoops Blast & the NCAA Bracket Challenge

I have to admit it, I have a problem.

I love brackets.

I've admired brackets on who's the best coach in ACC history (link here). I've been amused by the Bigger Dance bracket contest (follow them on Twitter here). I can't even sleep the night before Selection Sunday.

My point is that a bracket system makes anything fun.

But the NCAA Basketball tournament Selection Show is the best of them all. There's nothing better. I haven't missed watching one of those shows since I can remember. I scheduled my day around it when I was 10 years old (as much as 10 year-olds schedule their days). And I think the lack of a cool selection show played a role in the canceling of EA Sports' NCAA Basketball Franchise (link here).

So that gets me to now.

CBS and the NCAA unveiled a Bracket Challenge. Link to it here, behold it below. I'll pause for a minute so you can soak up the goodness that is the image below!

I saw this when I was making one of my regular visits to the NCAA site. It got me excited - now I could finally have a chance to play Selection Sunday expert!

And, to make this even better, they asked me, from Digital Hoops Blast, to participate in an experts group. Being a passionate college basketball guy, I got immediately excited.

When I saw the roster of talented basketball experts I'd be matched up against, this got surreal. I was asked to compete against the experts, whom I spend a good chunk of about every day reading. It's a pretty stacked lineup:

Gary Parrish, Jerry Palm, and Gregg Doyel (CBS), Andy Staples (SI), Ryan Fagan (Sporting News), Ryan Feldman (The Hoops Report), Zach Bell (Slipper Still Fits), Shawn Siegel (College Hoops Net), Jeff Borzello (March Madness All Season), Shelby Mast (Bracket WAG), Daniel Evans (Online Sports Fanatic), Chris Kulenych and Craig Gately (Bracketology 101), and Zach Hayes (Rush the Court)

Which is exactly the point of this challenge. Show what you know about the college game and how you stack up against the best minds.... and how you all then stack up against the committee.

So with that, it was time to sign in.

Upon entering into the site (here) and sign in with a profile. You are taken to the grid of all NCAA teams, shown below. This is a pretty sweet area. You become the committee. You can sort teams by RPI or record. You can filter the list by conference. And you simply drag and drop teams into the regions on the right...

If you want more information, you click in. As you can see in the image below, 55% of users put St Mary's in the tournament at an average seeding of #11. Meaning last night's victory over Gonzaga really surprised a lot of people. And took someone's spot in 45% of the brackets!

From this detail page, you can view their Stats and Key players. The user rankings update every hour or so. That's a lot of info to soak in...

And you go about this in just that way -- select teams on the left, drag them to a spot. Click in for more info.

Eventually, you make it here (see my image below). This tells you that you've completed the Bracket Challenge. And that you have until selection time March 14 to update your rankings.

Pretty solid.

As you know, on this site, we like to go a little further. How can we take what's inspiring and then envision where it could go? Here's what I'd love to see...

1. Clinched Spots. Give me some form of indication on teams that have already clinched a spot. Northern Iowa won the MVC tourney, and they are guaranteed a spot. This should be a drop down area to make sure you put them in the bracket.
2. Alerts. Let me sign up for email alerts if things change. What do I mean? Well, suppose I picked Wichita State to win the MVC tourney and the Valley's automatic bid. After the UNI title game victory, I should get an alert that I need to find a spot in my bracket for them.
3. Spell Check. How many of us have had our face saved by that handy spell check tool? Similarly, this needs a little second set of eyes. Give us some form of check to make sure we have all the automatic bids included. It's tough to find a listing of all the automatic bids out there, and letting us know if we missed the SWAC, for example, would be helpful.
4. Experiences as Prizes. What if the winner of this challenge got to sit in the room with the committee next year? That'd be incredible.
5. Insight. Help us know how to choose regions. It's hard enough to pick your 4 three seeds (mine are Purdue, Tennessee, New Mexico, & Pitt as of today). But how do you decide what region to put them in. A tutorial could be helpful.
6. Finally, TV exposure. What if the results of fan brackets infiltrated the TV Selection show? So when you saw the split screens of U Conn and Virginia Tech (my current last two at large teams to make it) we would see that 31% and 59% of fans, respectively, put them into the Bracket. That'd be hot!

This is a lot of fun, and a much needed experience. I'll be back to tweak my picks between now and March 14! I'll Twitter about my success (or failure) in competing against this stacked lineup, so please follow me on Twitter, here.

Make sure you check out the experience for yourself, here!

Andy