Okay, so it’s not exactly local, but there is obviously a big basketball tournament coming up and I thought I’d set up a contest for everyone out there.

Just jaunt over to tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com and join private group 137918. The password to enter the pool is Troy. But you've gotta get your picks in before the first tipoff Thursday morning. Yahoo makes it pretty simple to fill out a bracket, and it will take you only minutes – unless you’re like Tori. She’s a part-timer here who does a lot for us in the evenings. She tries to go into research mode around this time of year and is stressing now after doing so well last year. She has filled out so many versions of her bracket that I think she might have had Niagara winning it all in one of them.

(Seriously, I don’t think she went that far ... but she did have Xavier beating Ohio State ... and, yes, Tori, I’ve picked Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to stun Wisconsin, so I guess we all have completely baseless upset picks.)

This year’s bracket, though, seems to be tougher than in the past. I’ve been able to run through the thing most years, and have done pretty well – last year I even took the office pool, though I squeaked past Jacob thanks to a first-round upset by Montana.

The team giving me the most trouble is Notre Dame. I love my Irish, and they’ve had a great year. But losing depth early in the season kind of turned them into a live-by-the-3 team down the stretch, which worries me. If the trey isn’t falling, they’re going to be in trouble. Then again, if it is, they could make a run and go deep. The biggest problem, though, is that by changing just one team – especially in that bracket, I think – it gives you a domino effect and can change the rest of the thing completely.

But I’ll take my best shot – replete with so many lower-seed wins that I’ll likely see my bracket busted this year before the first weekend is through. But please join me ... I know the blog is new, but winding up in a pool all by myself would just be sad.