I'm extremely excited to announce that it is that time of the year again for college basketball. We are now only about 5 weeks away from the college basketball conference tournament season tipping off, which means it's time to fire up our 2026 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament pool! Coming up during the week of 2/22/2026, I will be sending out the rules and entry sheet for the 2026 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament pool. This will be our 16th year of running the pool as we prepare for the March Madness tournament. The players change, a few teams come and go, conferences sometimes change, but the same format for teams to punch a ticket to the NCAA tournament has been constant. This year I am experimenting with using AI and apparently it created some brand new college basketball teams in our new official logo. 🏀
Before we dive into the details of the 2026 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament pool, let's first look back at our 2025 winner, TJH, who won with 20 points, edging out Robb and Sohler by only 1 point. TJH had 18 wins, while his competition had 19 and 18 wins respectively, but it was the accumulation of 2 bonus points that catapulted him to victory. This shows how important it is to reach for those lower seeded teams. Bonus points really matter if you want to win this pool, especially when not many are available! 🎉
Top 4 From the 2025 Pool 👏
Below is a preview of the rules for the 2026 pool. As of right now, we have zero rule changes for 2026, but if you have any proposed rule changes or suggestions that you would like to see in 2027, please let me know. Overall, not much has changed in the NCAA since last year, a few teams changed conferences, one team moved up to division I, but that is about it.
If you are interested in playing this year, please let me know and I will reserve a spot for you as we have been capping the number of entries for the past few years. The game is very simple, all you do is pick who you think is going to win each of the 31 NCAA conference tournaments.
The entry fee will remain the same at $50 with the following payout structure:
- 1st place receives a 60% payout
- 2nd place receives a 25% payout
- 3rd place receives a 15% payout
- 4th place receives a free entry for the 2027 pool (Rory & Webb have the free entry for 2026!)
This pool really does have a very easy scoring system. The person with the combination of most correct picks, including bonus points, wins the pool. All ties in the standings are settled using the following tiebreakers:
- Overall total w/bonus points
- Total wins
- Accuracy
- Least amount of losses
- Closest SEC championship game total
Bonus points breakdown:
The bonus point scoring is super simple. For every 3 seed of lower conference tournament winner that you pick, you will be awarded 1 bonus point. In 2025, 6 out of 31 conference tournament winners were a 3 seed or lower. Getting bonus points is still important if you want to win the pool, as some years we see half the champions being 3 seeds or lower while other years we see less than 20% of winners being a 3 seed or lower.
Also, you can win money without winning the actual pool. 🤑
This pool is meant to be fun and keep people in it as long as possible, all the way to the last game played on Selection Sunday. No matter where you're at in the standings, you can still win money in 4 different ways, even if you're outside the top 3. It's likely we'll have some ties, so the money gets split among all winners in the event of a tie. Technically, you can be towards the bottom of the standings on Selection Sunday and still win every one of these categories. 👀
- (1) Most bonus points - The person with the most total bonus points (picking 3 seed or lower winners) will win $150. In 2025, TJH took all that money by himself with only 2 bonus points. 💰
- (2) Most power conference points - The person with the most power conference points (wins + bonus points) will win $150. The power conferences will be identified on the entry sheet for anyone unfamiliar with which conferences are considered power conferences. In 2025, Robb took all that money by himself with 4 bonus points. 💸
- (3) Lowest winning seed - The person who has the lowest winning seed conference tournament champion wins $150. In 2025, thanks to 6 seeded Mount Saint Mary's and Wofford, 3 people split this pot! 😍
- (4) Closest SEC championship game score - The person with the closest SEC championship game score wins $50. This is typically one of the last conference championship games, taking place on Selection Sunday, so even if you're in last place with no other wins, you will have the opportunity to recoup your $50. In 2025, this was split among 2 people! 😎
As conference tournaments begin and end at different dates between 3/2/26 - 3/15/26, I will post a daily blog, and standings update via the link below. 📅
Make sure you save this blog link, subscribe to it, and put it in your favorites, so you're always up to date on the pool updates. Each year I try to send less emails and keep more of the updates online. More details will be sent out during the week of 2/22/26. 🕑
Thank You!
Rick Donegan
