Jumping through hoops

Attention college basketball fans! (And those who pay attention to college hoops only in March!) We have not one, but two, free online contests for you in the annual College Hoops Hysteria portion of reviewjournal.com, each with a chance at winning $1 million if you correctly pick every winner in the tournament.

Capriotti's Sandwich Shop is sponsoring the up-front, fill-in-the-entire-bracket-before-the-start-of-the-tournament contest (http://lasvegas.collegehoops.upickem.net/). Capriotti's will put up additional prizes for players who pick all games correctly; those who pick the loser of every game; players missing three or fewer games and the top 25 winners based on contest points. These prizes are listed on the "Welcome" page of the up-front bracket contest.

I suggest you complete this bracket (being sure to choose a few upsets, of course) and print out your picks.

Then click over to the round-by-round contest (http://lasvegas.collegebasketball.upickem.net/), which is sponsored by Discount Tire, to pick winners of all the first-round games, which are scheduled for Thursday and Friday. The top scorer of each round will pocket $25. All players in both contests are also part of a larger, national pool, which also awards prizes at the end of each round. Click the "Winners" tab to see what's up for grabs.

The up-front bracket closes before tip-off of the first Thursday game. Once the tournament games begin, the up-front contest is closed, but the round-by-round contest will accept new players.

Both contests allow players to set up public or private groups, so if you're the manager of your office bracket contest, I urge you to use this contest to tally and compute winners. Signing up for the contest takes about five minutes. There are opt-in marketing questions from each of the sponsors and the reviewjournal.com site.

Let the games begin!