For the second year in a row we are hosting a NCAA bracket competition with Adam Warmer of the Daily Options Report.  This year we are pleased to announce that this year it is occurring under the aegis of StockTwits who have generously donated a nifty prize package for the winners.  To be specific:

1st Place:   a 3 month subscription to a StockTwits premium service of your choice;
2nd Place: signed copies of Brian Shannon and Adam Warner‘s books;
3rd Place:  a StockTwits shwag pack.

You can sign up for our pool over at CBS Sports.  You will need a CBS Sports account and the password:  “lenny” to complete the process.  The deadline is, of course, tip-off of the first game on Thursday.

For those with a quantitative bent there are some resources available to help guide your selections.  The two main sources of quantitative rankings for NCAA basket come from Ken Pomeroy and Jeff Sagarin.

Erich Doerr at The Wages of Wins Journal uses both of these models to predict the tournament winner.  In one case Kansas came out on top, in the other Duke won.

Wayne Winston at mathletics uses the Sagarin ratings to compute the odds of winning for each team.  Again Kansas and Duke come out as the two top contenders.

David Letscher has his own prediction model and provided some tips a few years ago in the New York Times on how to avoid the crowds in picking your brackets.

The LRMC Model maintained by a handful of professors at Georgia Tech is also worth a look.  In their model Kansas again comes out the champion.  We found this model in an article by Sarah Lorge Butler at CBS Moneywatch on how to win your bracket competition.

Also check out this “seeding anomaly” from The Sports Economist.

We hope you enjoy the Madness.  That is of course if your national champion doesn’t get knocked out in the first round…