Pontiac Virtual NCAA Final Four Details From 2K Sports; 2006 Champion Jeremy Griswold Recaps His Big Win
by Louis Bedigian
 
“They'll be competing in the virtual Final Four in front of thousands of people.”
 

2K Sports – one of the hottest names in sports games. Pontiac – one of the hottest names in automobiles. Separately they do not appear to have a strong connection. But together they’ve formed a partnership that places gamers from all over the country in a virtual Final Four.
 
Jeremy Griswold was the winner of the first tournament, an event that began last year and is likely to be carried on for some time. “I found out about the tournament from just playing the game,” Jeremy told us during a recent conference call. “Last year on the first day, we didn’t really know what was going on with it. There weren’t many details, just a link in the game about a Final Four tournament. It kept us interested all season.”

Jeremy said that he was fortunate enough to get in a lot of game time before the tourney began. “This is the most important part, the qualification period,” he says. “There are a lot of top gamers, and you have to qualify really high. With this amount of people, there are going to be a lot of people going after it.”
 
Offered exclusively on Xbox Live, the 2nd Annual Pontiac Virtual NCAA Final Four tournament is going on now. Four finalists will be invited to Atlanta to play the actual NCAA Men’s Final Four match-ups in front of fans on March 31st. The winner will take home a brand-new 2007 Pontiac G5 GT.
 
Jeremy plans to attend the finals again this year even if he’s not one of the final players. “My experience last year was awesome,” he said excitedly. “This year I got a late start ‘cause I am in the military and my duties kept me away from the opening weeks of qualification. That kind of hurt me. I had a horrible night last night, a lot of errors. A lot of dropped connections. I dropped about 100 points. So I’m at about 5,600 – about 400 points behind the leader.”

The Beginning
 
As champion of a major game tournament, the question on everyone’s mind is: how (and when) did Jeremy Griswold get started?
 
“I’m a big sports gamer,” he answers. “I’m a gamer period, but more so [toward sports]. I’m athletic. As far as tournaments, I played in local ones. We’d get together and have tournaments. But nothing on the scale of last year’s [virtual Final Four]. Last year was the real deal for me – that’s when I got to have my 15 minutes of fame.”
 
The next obvious question: how was the tournament formed?
 
“The idea came about with Pontiac,” said Mark Goodrich, Marketing Manager for 2K Sports. “Pontiac was looking to get in their real-world sponsorship of the NCAA as title of the automobile sponsor, with all their game-changing performances. [Pontiac vehicles] are the official performance machines of the NCAA. They were really looking to do something unique and special that hadn’t been done before. They approached us. We have them in the game, they sponsor our tournament mode. This is the second year we‘ve done it, and it’s going to be even bigger and better than last year. It’s a really exciting opportunity to work with those guys.”
 
As far as the actual creation of the event, Mark says that it involves “a tremendous amount of technical work on 2K Sports’s side, from the online side and from getting all the Pontiac stuff into the game.” 2K Sports will referee the tournament to ensure that everything goes smoothly.

Qualifications
 
Mark Goodrich: “In the first round there are 64 teams in the tournament. You rank the teams you’d like to have, and then in the actual tournament, you are put in one of six team contestants in the actual bracket. There are four teams to a bracket. If I’m a number-one team in a bracket of 64 teams that means there are 15 other contestants. You’re seated based on how you did in the qualifying round.
 
“Right now 44 is the minimum [number of contestants allowed] for Xbox; 100 is the minimum for Xbox 360. We’ve had a tremendous response this year thanks to Microsoft’s partnership and involvement. It’s [only] on Xbox Live [and] Microsoft has been promoting it heavily on their network, as well as on Xbox.com and on other media opportunities. We haven’t determined yet the exact number of qualifiers, but chances are it will be a multiple of the minimum number allowed.”
 
Someone Owes This Guy a Sandwich
 
Jeremy Griswold: “I’m in the army. All my buddies, they knew I was a gamer. I told ‘em about this tournament, and they were all, ‘What’re you talking about? How many people are in it? You’re never gonna win.’ I surprised them. I showed ‘em the e-mail from 2K saying I was going to Indianapolis. Then all the friendly betting was going on, ‘I’ll bet you lunch you won’t win.’ But they said to go out there and make ‘em proud.”
 
Commenting on which team he preferred to use, Jeremy said he chose Gonzaga because they fit the way he likes to play. “I like to shoot mid-range,” he said. “I’m not a big three-point shooter. Gonzaga had awesome shooters in the game last year, and I could tear people apart.”
 
While large crowds make most people nervous, it wasn’t the number of people that worried this champion. “’Cause once I start playing I’ll just zone out and get into the game,” he said proudly. His greatest fear: the controller layout. He qualified at home on PS2, a console he had been using for years. The finals required him to use an Xbox controller, which forced him to learn a new button layout.

Just Like Celebrities
 
The four finalists are in for a treat when they land in Atlanta. “We’ll pick ‘em up in a limo [and] drive ‘em downtown,” Mark revealed. “Last year, due to the incredible scarcity of hotels in Indianapolis, we had ‘em staying at Motel 8. [Laughs.] Or something like that! It was fine as far as walking distance. But this year they’re going to be staying at the Hilton in Atlanta. They’ll be competing in front of a large crowd. There are lots of other exciting things about the event that will make it twice as big as last year. It’s going to be very different, but I don’t want to spoil anything yet. Some of the deals of the event are still to be determined.”
 
He did, however, confirm that each of the four finalists can bring a friend. “They get tickets to the game,” he added. “[The contestants] will be competing in the virtual Final Four in front of thousands of people. It’ll be great.”
 
The Future
 
Those who didn’t make it into this year’s tourney will be glad to hear that 2K Sports plans to continue the tradition next year. Mark comments: “We’re already in talks with Pontiac for a third year of the tournament. I’d be surprised if there was not a third year in the tournament.”
 
What can players do to increase their chances of success? “Play the game more,” Mark advises. “Register early, and play online often. It’s a different experience online.
 
“The thing about last year’s winners is that they had tremendous all-around skills within the game. They knew the nuances of playing the game in terms of how to play the difference defenses. If you’re facing somebody with a strong inside game, how do you counter that? If you’re playing someone who’s shooting threes all the time, how do you counter that?”
 
When I asked Mark about other tourneys for 2K Sports, he pointed to the All-Star games for the NBA and NHL. “We’re gonna have a big tournament for our MLB product,” he said. “I’m working on the football game [All-Pro Football 2K8] and we don’t have anything announced yet for events. [But] I would be very surprised if there was not some sort of online tournament surrounding that title too.”

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