04-11-04

Don't Ya Love March! NEARsports.com is proud to bring you our second annual Basketball Bracket Challenge! This year's proud sponsor is, again, Pepsi Americas of Jonesboro! HighSchoolCollectibles.com, Timco Screen Printing of Jonesboro and Blockbuster Video of Jonesboro & Batesville are also sponsors of this year's contest. This is the biggest contest of it's kind in Arkansas! NEARsports.com will give you ALL 10 Arkansas High School State Tournament brackets and both NCAA basketball brackets to play. That's 12 chances to win! Each tournament will award a 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place prize! Want to see how last year's contest went? Click HERE and see if any of your friends took home a prize! RULES PLEASE READ CAREFULLY 1. It is possible, and permitted, for the same person to win prizes on more than one bracket. 2. You may only submit one (1) entry per bracket. 3. You must pick all of the winners of each bracket BEFORE the tournaments begin. The high school brackets will be ready to pick late on the evening of February 28. You must make ALL of your high school selections for each bracket, from the opening round to the finals, BEFORE the high school tournaments begin on March 2. Entries submitted after the first tip-off will not be accepted. The same applies to the NCAA tournaments. The men's tournament will begin on March 18 and the women's tournament will begin on March 20. You must have your entire bracket filled out before the opening tip of the first game. 4. You may change your entries ONLY before the opening tip. Any changes submitted AFTER the tournament begins will disqualify that player. 5. In the event that the high school tournaments are rescheduled due to winter weather, the entry dates will be adjusted accordingly. 6. If you win a prize, you will have 7 days to respond to the email that NEARsports.com sends to you confirming your prize. 7. In the event of a tie, the players involved in the tie will be given a tie breaker via e-mail. Players involved in the tie will be contacted via email immediately in order to take part in the tie breaker. The tie breaker for any of the high school brackets will be to guess the combined number of points scored in the March 16 Philadelphia 76ers at Memphis Grizzlies basketball game. The tie breaker for the NCAA brackets will be to guess the combined number of points scored in the April 9 Memphis Grizzlies at L.A. Lakers basketball game. If your tie breaker entries are not received by the opening tip-off of your tie breaker game, you will not be eligible for the tie breaker. There will be NO tie breakers for 4th place. If a 4th place tie exists, the player that completed his/her bracket the earliest will win the 4th place prize in that bracket. 8. Employees of Pepsi Americas, HighSchoolCollectibles.com, Timco Screen Printing, Blockbuster Video or NEARsports.com are not eligible to win. The owner of the site (David Grim) will be playing along with you, but will NOT be eligible to win a prize. Should he come in the top four of any of the brackets, the player below him will move up to claim that prize. 9. By submitting an entry in the contest, you are accepting these rules and agreeing to abide by them. PRIZES 1st Prize - The first prize for each of the NCAA brackets will be $50! For each of the 10 high school brackets, the top prize will be $25!     2nd Prize - All second prize winners will receive a miniature football helmet depicting the high school or NFL team of your choice from HighSchoolCollectibles.com! Your choice is subject to availability. If your high school's helmet design is not available, you must choose one of the folowing options: (A) Submit a photo of your high school's helmet to NEARsports.com to be replicated by HighSchoolCollectibles.com, (B) Select an NFL team, or (C) Accept a NEARsports.com helmet. Allow two to three weeks for delivery of the helmet. 3rd Prize - All third prize winners will receive a NEARsports.com T-Shirt from Timco Screen Printing of Jonseboro! Size XL. 4th Prize - All fourth prize winners will receive a free movie rental from Blockbuster Video! The movie rental coupons are valid at Blockbuster locations NATIONWIDE! They are being supplied by Blockbuster Video of Jonseboro and Batesville!   Good Luck!

WINNERS!

Boys Class AAAAA

1st - Doug McDaniel, Jonesboro
2nd - S.T. Hinton, Jonesboro (Miami Dolphins)
3rd - Nick Lawton, Little Rock 
4th - Jay Bir, Jonesboro

Girls Class AAAAA

1st - John R. Anthony, Arkadelphia
2nd - Randy Strickland, Alma (Alma Airedales)
3rd - William Chapman, Blytheville
4th - Michael Thomason, Camden

Boys Class AAAA

1st - Keith Griffin, Blytheville
2nd - Randy Strickland, Alma (Alma Airedales)
3rd - Jeff Cathey, Little Rock
4th - Cody Moser, Melbourne