Regardless of how much attention you pay to college basketball during the regular season, the NCAA Tournament annually provides must-see sports entertainment. So whether you are looking for ways to take in all the action wherever you travel, need some help putting together your pool bracket, or want your boss to think you are working when you slip out to watch some daytime games, we have some app recommendations for you.
So tap into any of these five apps to tap into all the hardwood action during March Madness.
NCAA March Madness Live (Free, $3.99 for streaming games)
If you only download one mobile app during this year’s tournament, this official title developed by Turner Sports in association with CBS and the NCAA, March Madness Live for free provides scoring and news updates, bracket creators, and an assortment of alerts which will notify you of potential upsets, close games with less than five minutes remaining and games that go into overtime. But that’s just an appetizer. For $3.99, the app will also live stream all 67 games that take place during the tournament. There is also live chat and the ability to post bracket info to Facebook and Twitter. Users fortunate enough to pick up a new iPad when it comes out on March 16 will also enjoy the higher definition video that device will offer. And you only have to subscribe once to view games on any Apple mobile device you own.
Yahoo! Tourney ’12 (Free)
Yahoo! Sports is a pioneer in tournament tracking, and this brand new title has all the info you will ever need about your bracket or favorite team available at your fingerprints. The app of course lets you tap into Yahoo! Tournament Pick’em wherever you travel. Also available within the apps are stats, live scoring information and aggregated blogs and tweets from more than 300 college hoops gurus. Pretty sweet!
March Madness Mania ($0.99)
If you’re looking for a March Madness app that’s a mix of analysis, news, scores and highlights, March Madness Mania has all beats covered. The app has instant analysis from NCAA legends like Dick Vitale, Fran Fraschilla, Andy Katz and more. Users can also read tweets from coaches and read the latest about the news as it happens. March Madness Mania also contains a selection of video replays and highlights in case you prefer your basketball apps a little livelier than brackets and a bunch of text.
Mobile Madness (Free)
In contrast to March Madness Mania’s ‘everything in one box’ package, Mobile Madness is as stripped down as can be. The app’s only feature is a live updating scoreboard of the NCAA Tournament action. When games finish the final scores are posted and the in-app bracket is updated, but that’s all you’ll see here. If you don’t want to deal with a bunch of extraneous features, Mobile Madness is the app to use.
PocketBracket: Men’s College Basketball ($0.99)
Bracketology is pretty much a proven science. It takes skill and know-how to pick a March Madness bracket; or a blindfold and a few beers, whichever. PocketBracket: Men’s College Basketball lets you get your bracket game on as often as you want with an unlimited number of brackets. If you can sucker your friends into playing along, you can create private pools to see who is the best at randomly picking college basketball games. And of course, the app also offers game scores updated throughout each day’s games.
Office Pool Picker 2012 ($0.99)
Not everyone can be an NCAA genius. For those who prefer to pick teams by any means necessary, Office Pool Picker 2012 offers an interesting option – picking games using weird personal preferences. For instance, do you prefer birds or bees? Captain America or The Hulk? Each question you answer fills up your bracket so you don’t have to think about actual basketball for a second. It’s a fun, lighthearted app that might just give you a better edge on the office competition than any other app out there.
