NCAA Bracket 2017: Printable Bracket Preparation and Top Challenge Games

The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament bracket will be released on Sunday, March 12 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET on CBS.

If previous years are any indication, fans will be tearing their brackets to shreds just 96 hours later on the first full day of the NCAA tournament following massive upsets.

Here's a look at where you can download and print a blank bracket as well as three tournament challenge games you can play online.

Printable Bracket Preparation

Fans can download and print an official blank March Madness bracket on ncaa.com by following this link.

The entire bracket will be released from 5:30 p.m. - 7 p.m. ET on CBS. Afterward, the official bracket will be available to download and print on ncaa.com, Bleacher Report and other sports websites.

Top Challenge Games

Bleacher Report

The Bleacher Report Bracket Challenge awards an "Ultimate Sports Trip" to a lucky fan and guest. That duo will win two tickets to any four sports games of their choice  December 31, 2017 in the contiguous United States, hotel accommodations, airfare and a $200 per diem.

B/R has a unique feature where fans can change a pick between the end of the second round and the beginning of the Sweet 16. Here's more from B/R about that, but here's how that could play out, using Bleacher Report college basketball writer Kerry Miller's latest bracket projections for an example.

Let's say you picked Baylor to go to the Final Four as a No. 2 seed, but No. 7 seed Maryland upset the Bears in the second round, leaving you with one less Final Four participant (and many fewer available points to earn).

With this feature, you can now substitute Maryland for Baylor and have the Terps go to the Final Four, making you eligible to now earn all of those future points again.

The trick is to replace a team you had going the furthest. So if you had Baylor going to the Final Four and it lost, and you had Duke going to the Elite Eight and it lost, you should replace Baylor so you regain the ability to win more points.

The top 12,000 brackets will be entered into a random drawing for the grand prize. Users are limited to five brackets each.

ESPN

ESPN is running its 20th annual tournament challenge, with the winner earning $10,000 in Amazon gift cards and a trip for two to the 2017 Maui Jim Maui Invitational. Next year, Michigan and Notre Dame will headline the eight-team field.

The ESPN Tournament Challenge is typically the most popular pool in the world, with millions of brackets (last year, 13 million brackets populated the pool, per an ESPN press release).

The winner will be picked via a random drawing of the top 1 percent of finishers. Here's an explanation from the ESPN Tournament Challenge FAQ as to why the participant with the best bracket is not guaranteed the grand prize:

"

Beginning in 2012, ESPN became a broadcast partner with the NCAA. As such, we were bound by their rules, and the two main clauses which state a) No cash prizes can be awarded and b) The contest winner must incorporate a random drawing element for any prizes. We chose to do the random drawing from the top 1%, while the other major broadcast partner's game uses the top 10%.

"

Players can submit no more than 10 brackets.

Yahoo

Yahoo is offering the biggest grand prize out of the major sports websites, giving $25,000 to the winner of its best bracket group. There is no random drawing since Yahoo! is not a broadcast partner with the NCAA.

Fans are limited to one bracket each if they choose to participate for the grand prize.

Yahoo has a standard bracket-scoring system, like B/R and ESPN, with one point awarded for correct first-round picks, two for the second round, four for the Sweet 16, eight for the Elite Eight, 16 for the Final Four and 32 for the champion.