Today kicks of the first big day of the Men’s College Basketball NCAA Tournament and fans around the world will watch the top college hoops teams make a run for the Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final Four, and ultimately the championship. As the field of 64 boils all the way down to the hottest of teams, inevitably upsets occur, and dreams go up in smoke.
Games on Thursday and Friday start at noon. Weekend games often overlap with the awesomeness of your social life. And while you can always catch the highlights on ESPN, nobody wants to miss watching the most epic tourney buzzer beaters live. Thuuz Sports is an app that’s perfect for the tournament tracking sports fan who has one eye on the games and another eye elsewhere… here is how it works.
The first thing you should do after signing up is set your preferences in your profile. As you can see I selected a few favorite leagues (MLB, NCAA BBall, NCAA Top 25 & Tourney, NFL Football) as well as my favorite teams (Orioles, Ravens, Yankees, Syracuse Football, Syracuse Basketball). It’s important to select teams in addition to leagues because of the notification differences.
For example, I want constant notification about Syracuse Basketball games (even though I’ll be watching) so I’ve turned on all notifications at the highest interest level. For the rest of the league, I’ve chosen to be notified of exciting games and indicated I’m in between casual and fanatic.
The core two screens of the app are the “Feed” which deliver content including news, videos, and most importantly-excitement watches. My current feed (on the left) mostly shows news around the NFL on contract negotiations, but if you scroll down (on the right) notice the big “EXCITING” indication? I would have received this as a notification had I been using the app during the game.
So now, I’m able to get game updates not only regarding important teams that I care most about, but I’m also notified and updated regarding exciting games that I normally wouldn’t otherwise watch. Oh, #15 Albany is about to beat #2 Duke? Thanks for notifying me, Thuuz, I’ll tune in now!
Not only can you look at today’s games but you can also swipe to see future days in addition to swiping back for game results. I wish the app would do a bit better job at increasing the Thuuz score for your favorite teams – you’ll certainly find those games more exciting – but hopefully they’ll add this feature in the future.
The last feature I want to discuss puts Thuzz over the top as one of the must download apps for sports fans: there’s a Google TV app for Thuzz! With a Thuzz account (or you can connect with Facebook, like I did) your team preferences get synced across devices. That means a couple HUGE things:
If you don’t have Google TV, don’t worry- the Android app will let’s you enter your zip code and television provider so you’re notified of the correct station as well.
I have yet to use Thuzz for an NCAA tournament but I’ve got it all set up and ready to rock. I’m hoping to love it and use it for all my sports fan watching needs in the future. Fantasy Sports fans will want to note that you can similarly track your fantasy teams, related games, and player performance by connecting them with Thuuz.
Who do you think will win the NCAA Tournament this year?
Go ahead and download Thuuz from the Play Store or visit their website.