FreeTrak

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET Staff on February 27, 2009

Though it doesn't look like much, the free NCAA men's basketball tournament pool manager FreeTrak includes everything you need to successfully manage the 2006 (or any other year's) March Madness competition. A single click imports all the 2006 teams and regions, and entering contestants' picks is as easy as importing bookmarks to Firefox.

Setting up a pool is simple. Select "New Tournament," name it, save it, then "Open" it from the File menu. Customize your scoring system and enter the teams and regions for this year's tournament. You can either automatically import teams and regions via the "Instant Import" button if you're online, or enter them manually. Now comes the adding of picks. Contestants in your pool can download their own version of FreeTrak to export a picks file (FTX) you can import, or you can manually enter picks for players who have written them on a paper bracket. Once all the players and picks have been entered, it's on to the actual basketball games. When results from NCAA games are final, you simply update the "Actual Results Bracket" with the winning teams, and FreeTrak will automatically tabulate contestants' scores and compile rankings. The biggest addition to FreeTrak for 2007 is a bonus scoring feature for upsets.