How to Use the Bracket Performance Calculator
Scoring how precisely you predicted the tournament's seed lines, once the real field is announced.
The Bracket Performance Calculator measures how precisely you predicted the NCAA tournament's seed lines, grading both whether a team made your field and where you put it. It runs on the Paymon Scoring System.
Instead of rewarding picks by how far a team advances in the tournament (the traditional bracket pool model), the Bracket Performance Calculator is entirely about the Selection Committee's seeding decisions. You're being measured against the same data the committee uses.
How to Use It
How Points Work
Every team in your bracket is scored independently based on the difference between your predicted seed and the actual seed assigned by the committee.
| Result | Condition | Points | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exact seed line | Predicted = Actual | 6 | You said #3 seed, committee said #3 seed |
| Within one seed | |Predicted − Actual| = 1 | 4 | You said #4 seed, committee said #3 or #5 seed |
| Correctly selected | |Predicted − Actual| ≥ 2 | 3 | You had the team in the field, but wrong seed line |
| Missed the field | Actual seed entered as 0 | 0 | You put the team in your bracket; the committee left them out |
| Not in your bracket | Team not placed on any seed line | 0 | Team made the tournament but you left them in the pool |
Reading the Summary
Total Score. The sum of all points earned across every team you've entered an actual seed for, shown against the maximum for your whole bracket (456 for a standard 76-team field). This is your Paymon score.
Rate. The share of available points you've earned so far: your total divided by six times the number of teams you've entered. Unlike a running maximum, this holds roughly still as you work, so it tells you how the bracket is going before you have finished entering it.
Entered. How many of your bracket's teams you've filled in an actual seed for, out of the total teams in your bracket.
Exact Seed. Teams where your predicted seed exactly matched the actual seed (6 pts each). This is the hardest category to score well on.
Within One. Cumulative count of teams that earned 6 or 4 points, meaning you were exact or off by a single seed line.
In the Field. How many of the teams in your bracket made the tournament, regardless of whether you had the seed line right. Any team you entered as a miss (0) is left out here, which is what separates this number from Entered.
East / Midwest / West / South. Per-region score totals. Only populated when you tag teams to a region using the active region selector during entry.
Things Worth Knowing
Reload from Studio re-reads your bracket without clearing any actual seeds you've already entered. Use it any time you update your predictions in Bracket Studio after you've started scoring.
Enter key moves focus to the next input field, so you can work through all 76 teams without touching the mouse.
Entries save automatically as you type. Closing the tab and coming back won't lose your work, as long as you're on the same browser and haven't cleared site data.
The search bar filters teams by name in real time. Useful when you want to quickly find a specific team rather than scrolling through all seed lines.
Remaining Only hides every team you have already entered, which is the fast way to find the last handful once you are most of the way through the field.
A seed outside 1–16 is flagged rather than accepted, so a typo can't sit in a box looking entered while scoring nothing.
Reset All clears every actual seed and region tag you've entered. Your bracket predictions from Bracket Studio are untouched. Only your scoring entries get removed.
Bracket Studio and the Bracket Performance Calculator share a theme. Switching dark or light mode in either app applies to both, since they read the same setting in your browser.