Fans get 2 more days to fill out bracket

Americans don't take kindly to people messing with their NCAA brackets, a reality that most major pools are acknowledging this week.

The expansion of the tournament field from 65 to 68 and addition of three "first-round" games before the madness really kicks in Thursday have been met with a collective shrug.

Most fans like the symmetry of the 64-team bracket. Just as importantly, many like having until noon Thursday to fill theirs in.

So ESPN, Yahoo!, CBS, Newsday and other online contest hosts will treat the first four games as freebies, like those one-game play-ins on Tuesdays in recent years.

"We wanted to make sure we were giving as many fans as much time as possible," said Jason Waram, ESPN's VP for fantasy and social media. "The people that fill in brackets, for a lot of them, this may be the only fantasy game they do all year . . . We didn't want to shut people out."

ESPN's bracket challenge had 5.4 million entries last year; as of early Monday, it already was at 1.6 million.

The decision on bracket deadlines was delicate for CBS, because it and Turner want viewers to consider Tuesday night's games the real start of the event.

Jason Kint, general manager of CBSSports.com, said the site decided to retain the Thursday deadline for several reasons, including concern that given the shortened schedule, "it would prove too difficult to condition millions of sports fans to organize and complete their brackets on time."

But he emphasized that the event "definitely starts on Tuesday, so it's our expectation at CBSSports.com that after this year, fans will be demanding the Tuesday lock so that their brackets are more consistent with the actual tournament schedule." He added that this year's approach "is likely just a one-time bridge to a new schedule in years to come.''

Among the quirks of the new system: Two of the four early games will produce winners with realistic chances to win again later in the week.

That will cause many avid contestants to wait until Thursday morning to pick those teams' games. That's what many casual, procrastinating fans will do, too, which was the deciding factor for most contest organizers.

Does the ever-rising total of entries surprise Waram? "You always wonder when that plateau may hit,'' he said. "But everybody feels they want to be a part of it.''

ESPN's bash brothers

Turner's NBA voices surely are capable of calling and/or analyzing college games. But putting Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith on CBS' crowded studio set Sunday to discuss the vagaries of the field on the fly was asking a lot.

Too much, actually. It was not an auspicious start for the CBS/Turner partnership.

Anyway, the real action Sunday was on ESPN, where analysts led by Jay ("Indefensible!") Bilas and Dick Vitale blasted the selection committee, mostly for picking VCU and UAB over Colorado.

CBS' Seth Davis had expressed surprise, too, but not outrage.

Might the tone have been a bit more subdued if ESPN had secured the rights to the NCAAs over CBS / Turner? Generally, we try to resist undue cynicism here but, well, yes, probably so.

truTV gets its closeup

The best part about the NCAA's "First Four" doubleheaders Tuesday night and Wednesday is that they give fans a chance to find truTV in their channel lineups before the craziness begins Thursday.

The NCAA has a locator on its website, or check with your provider.

(By the way, while many observers expected CBS to get first dibs on the best matchups, the distribution between CBS and Turner seems pretty fair.)

Even though every game will be on TV, the online March Madness on Demand will continue for those of you who have only a computer at work and plan to goof off Thursday and Friday afternoons.

NCAAs mean Gus buzz

For many viewers, nothing says NCAAs quite like Gus Johnson screaming over a buzzer-beater.

Gus will be on the case in Dayton for Wednesday's doubleheader, then in Cleveland for the weekend, including Syracuse-Indiana State late Friday night.

Johnson, who said last week he missed not working Knicks games this season for the first time since the mid-1990s, warmed up Saturday by excitedly calling Washington's buzzer-beater over Arizona in the Pac-10 championship game.

The shooter for the Huskies: Isaiah Thomas.