With apologies to those who agree with that catchy jingle you hear each year during Bowl Week on ESPN, this is the most wonderful time of the year.

No single event beats the tournament, in my estimation. The anticipation of seeing the brackets revealed for the first time on Selection Sunday each year has replaced the anxiety I used to feel as a kid from the time I went to bed on Christmas Eve right up until I walked down the stairs to see a pile of presents under the tree the next morning. Maybe I just don't get out enough these days, but it's how I roll.

We at ESPN.com are hoping to change the way you roll during the Big Dance, with our new fantasy game, Hardcourt Challenge.

So many of you already play Tournament Challenge, where it's all about the teams. Hardcourt Challenge goes a step further and makes you pin your hopes to specific players participating in the tournament.

The rules are quite simple. Start by picking one player from each of the eight groupings -- we call them buckets -- with the goal of scoring the most Hardcourt Challenge points, which are a player's points, rebounds and assists combined.

Deciding which player to choose from each bucket will be the greatest challenge, because you won't be picking a bunch of superstars. Sure, you'll have a shot to get a couple of studs, but you'll need to rely on role players as well, just like the actual tournament teams will.

There are three different scoring segments for the three weeks of the tournament: Segment 1 will encompass the first and second rounds; Segment 2 will deal with the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight; and Segment 3 will cover the two national semifinal games and the championship game. Rosters will lock at the start of the first game of each week.

The key is to remember that you're picking players for each two-game segment, not for the entire tournament. To use a hypothetical from last year, you may not have felt good about Davidson advancing deep into the tournament, but you were confident they'd get past their first-round opponent, so you chose star guard Stephen Curry in Week 1. If you had done that, you would have been rewarded with a segment-high 83 Hardcourt Challenge points in his two games.

To further illustrate how important it is that you maximize games played on your roster, look no further than last year's first-round matchup between USC and Kansas State and future NBA lottery picks O.J. Mayo and Michael Beasley. Mayo's Trojans were the higher seed, but if you decided to take him instead of Beasley, you'd have lost out in a big way. Beasley's Wildcats won the game and he scored 72 Hardcourt Challenge points in his two Week 1 games, while Mayo scored just 27 in defeat.

So, now that I've driven that point home, it's important to note that you can change your entire roster prior to each week's games, if you like, in an attempt to maximize your points for that week. If you find yourself at the top of the leaderboard after the national championship game on April 6, you'll win a gift card from Best Buy worth $5,000. In addition, the user with the highest score in each segment will receive a gift card from Best Buy worth $1,100.

You're already going to be knee-deep in brackets, so why not add to your fantasy portfolio by giving Hardcourt Challenge a shot? It'll give you something new to brag about or yet another reason to feel snakebitten by the annual craziness the tournament provides.

Keith Lipscomb is an editor for ESPN Fantasy Games.