With the Big 12 Tournament kicking off today, that can mean just one thing: the NCAA Tournament is right around the corner.

We’ve reworked our KUSports.com bracket contest this year (can’t divulge all the details yet because we’re still working feverishly to get it done) and because of that we’re offering a big prize to the winner: a flat screen TV, courtesy of our friends at Kief’s. Come back to KUSports.com Sunday night to complete your bracket.

It’ll also be the first chance to use some of the new toys we built into the site when we relaunched it. If you haven’t noticed before, when you visit a profile on KUSports.com you can choose to follow that person. Previously, that’s done next to nothing. But once the bracket contest starts, you should (again, still working on it here) be able to see a scoreboard customized to just the people you’re following.

So, find your friends on KUSports.com and start following them.

I also wanted to point out there we’re now offering final score updates via SMS and e-mail for all of the upcoming Big 12 and NCAA Tournament games. That way, whether you’re in a meeting or in a class, you can still find out who’s advancing and who’s going home.

Of course, you can still sign up for score alerts for KU games as well. A note of caution about both lists: it can take us up to 24 hours to update our database, so sign up now if you want to get all the scores delivered to you.