Princeton prognosticators participate in pools

For a few minutes, at least, junior T.J. Barry was on top of the world.

Like millions of people across the world, Barry took part in the annual tradition of "filling out a bracket" — prognosticating the results of the men's basketball NCAA tournament — and entering a pool with friends.

Barry entered his picks in ESPN.com's Tournament Challenge, an online pool that several million college hoops fans enter each year. In addition to allowing entrants to compete with friends — Barry's bracket was entered in a pool for Colonial Club members — the Tournament Challenge pool also features a national leaderboard that displays the top 50 scorers.

And so it was that Barry logged on the Saturday night of the first weekend of the tournament and saw his name listed with the best of the best.

"Right before Wake lost, I had everything correct except for Bucknell, Vermont and Iowa State, which was good for fifth in the country (tied with about 30 other people)," Barry said in an email.

His fame, though, was short-lived.

"Since then, things have gone terribly wrong," Barry said, "but it was still cool to see my name on the leaderboard at one point."

Barry was far from the only Princeton student to fill out a bracket or enter a pool this March. Like Barry, most of the would-be oracles entered small pools with friends, often competing with fellow eating club members or fraternity brothers.

While some hoops fans enter pools only for bragging rights, others choose to spice things up by wagering a few dollars on the outcome.

Junior Vikram Bellapravalu organized a small pool for fellow Tower Club members.

"It was just a group of friends," Bellapravalu said, "and we all put in a pretty marginal sum of money."

Like the Colonial pool, the Tower pool was administered through ESPN.com, but none of the Towerites have come anywhere near to matching Barry's high ranking. But the entrants have still followed the tournament intently, cheering for teams that give them a shot at ending up in the money.

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Though he tried to make his group as large as possible to maximize the possible winnings — by asking around and emailing the members of the Tower Club — Bellapravalu ended up with only about a dozen people.

"Honestly, I haven't even heard of that many pools at Princeton," he said.

Freshman Ashrit Kamirredi found it difficult to set up a pool with Princeton friends because the start of the tournament coincided with spring break.

"I've been in a pool for the past few years, but it was tough this year because by the time we got back from spring break the games were already under way," he said.

The lack of tournament pools on campus can be partly attributed to NCAA regulations prohibiting student-athletes from participating in any sort of sports gambling.

In an email sent to varsity athletes, Associate Athletic Director Erin McDermott wrote that athletes are prohibited from entering any tournament pools "that require an entry fee or wager any tangible items on the outcome of a game (money, clothing, meals, beverages, etc.)."

McDermott said in an interview that the idea behind these regulations is to "protect the integrity of the competitions," since the athletes might have privileged information about "who's injured, who's going to start, etc."

According to McDermott, no Princeton students have been caught violating these regulations, but students at other universities — including Columbia, where she worked before coming to Princeton — have been.

The typical punishment for violating the NCAA rules about sports gambling is a loss of eligibility for a certain period of time, depending on the severity of the incident.

Coaches are also prohibited from participating in pools. A few months after the 2003 tournament, this rule gained widespread national attention when University of Washington football head coach Rick Neuheisel was fired after he won $11,000 in a tournament pool.

For those who are allowed to participate, though, there's nothing more satisfying than starting April off with newfound bragging rights — not to mention a nice stack of cash.