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March Madness 2008 Printable Bracket
It’s that time again….March Madness and every office with any semblance of life will be incorporating March Madness 2008 office pools.Needless-to-say, all our readers will require a printable bracket. These can be found at either ESPN.com or CBS Sportsline.
Just how popular are office pools and contests?
The tournament is no longer the exclusive province of the sports-obsessed. Office pools have dramatically expanded the number participating in and obsessing about the tourney. Last year, more than 3 million participated in online tournament contests, and with each year, more and more women enter office pools. Many — men and women alike — are simply ill-equipped to handle the pressure.
"Given the levels of unremitting stress, is it any wonder that thousands of Americans experience degrees of mental dysfunction during and long after the three-week event?" asked Dr. Frederick Geisel, a renowned industrial psychologist. "Effects can range from minor and temporary emotional imbalance to more prolonged periods of melancholy — or, its opposite, bouts of seemingly unprovoked rage — to longer-term effects, such as acute clinical depression."

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• With Selection Sunday a week away, staff writer Dirk Chatelain updates his thoughts leading up to the NCAA basketball tournament:
Drake is in for an interesting - and potentially maddening - Selection Sunday, whether it wins or loses in the Missouri Valley tournament final today.
Draw a number between four and nine out a hat - you could be holding Drake’s seed for the NCAA tournament.
While we can safely project most of the teams in the field within one seed, the selection committee is notoriously unpredictable with mid-major profiles like Drake’s.
In 2007, Butler earned a No. 5 seed. Southern Illinois was a No. 4. But Nevada, projected by almost every bracket guru on the market as a 3-5 seed, was a No. 7. What’s the practical difference? Well, SIU went to the Sweet 16 without an upset. Butler beat No. 12 Old Dominion and No. 4 Maryland to do the same.
Nevada had to deal with No. 10 Creighton in the first round, then lost to a high-powered, second-seeded Memphis, in the second round.
Drake’s problem: its 2008 profile looks more like Nevada’s than Southern Illinois’.
An even better comparison might be SIU in 2005:
Southern Illinois 2005

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North Sioux City, SD, March 16, 2008 –(PR.com)– Prizes include 6 VizioTM LCD TVs for Perfect Bracket, Sony Digital Camera, and more.
Dakota PC Warehouse, a retailer of computing and consumer electronics products, is inviting all college basketball fans to participate in a new, free, online tournament pool called Mad Brackets. Mad Brackets is hosted by DakotaPCWarehouse.com and sponsored by K2 Mounts Inc. and in this contest entrants will match their basketball prognostication skills against other self-proclaimed “bracketologists” in competition for thousands of dollars in prizes.
Mad Brackets is open to individuals as well as groups and entry is free. Prizes will be awarded to the winners who accumulate the most points simply by selecting the winning teams in the upcoming men’s college basketball tournament beginning on March 20, 2008. First prize is a 32-inch Vizio LCD TV. Second prize is a Sony digital camera, and third prize is a Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse.
In addition, DakotaPCWarehouse.com and K2 Mounts are offering a special grand prize to any person who records a perfect score by correctly selecting all the winning teams in every round of the tournament. Mad Brackets also contains a special twist whereby prizes can be awarded after every round of the tournament. For each tournament round in which an individual maintains a perfect score, the contestant will win an additional and progressively larger Vizio LCD TV. For example, a perfect score in the first round wins a 20-inch Vizio LCD TV while a perfect score in the both the first and second rounds will earn a 20-inch and a 32-inch Vizio LCD TV. The prize package for a perfect score through all six rounds of the tournament will include six Vizio LCD TVs featuring screen sizes of 20, 32, 37, 42, 47, and 52-inches, respectively, plus wall mounting brackets from K2 Mounts.

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