With Mardi Gras behind us, it’s now officially MARCH MADNESS TIME. Today is National Bracket Day, and what does that mean for you? Well, office pools, yelling at the TV, and drinking on Tuesday nights, obviously. However, if you’re like me and aren’t completely sure of how this deal works (it’s something with a ball and a bag you throw it into, right?), you’ll need all the digital help you can get. Luckily some gents over at Tampa Bay.com gave us a nice roundup of the best apps to keep you in the know.

The NCAA Fan Zone – March Madness

Available for both Android and iPhones and FREE, which is my favorite word. Keeps you up to date with real time scores, news, and rankings for all Division I teams. Integrates with Facebook and Twitter so you can be that obnoxious guy ruining my news feed. (Here for Android and here for iPhone)

NCAA March Madness on Demand

Miss a game? Don’t worry, you can stream any game, at any time, for free, with the NCAA March Madness on demand app. Whether you’re stuck in traffic or pretending to work in the office, you can rest assured knowing that you won’t miss a beat. Plus it’s available on your computer, iPhone, iPad, or Android device.

Pocket Bracket app

For 99 cents you can be the King of Brackets with this program which allows you to manage and track unlimited brackets and pools. This app will help you monitor games, results, and stats and will connect to the Pocket Bracket network so you can judge your performance against everyone else playing, which is of course the entire point – finding out who you’re better than at things. And once again, you can share everything you want on Twitter and Facebook so I am forced to hide all your posts you annoying little a–.

ESPN Bracket Bound

This seems to be one of the best apps, although if you want to premium features it’ll set you back about $5.  It has the popular ESPN Bracket Challenge, where you can have up to 10 brackets and measure them up against the top entries in the game on the Leaderboard as well as within your own private or public groups. It of course has the live scoring updates, but the best part of this app? In depth analysis from ESPN commentators and interviews with players and coaches so you can make sure you don’t sound like a big idiot when talking about the games at the water cooler. And with the upgraded premium app? You get

Exclusive bracket advice via video clips from ESPN college basketball analysts including Andy Katz, Doug Gottlieb and Bracketology expert Joe Lunardi; alerts including texts from Joe Lunardi, injury updates, upset alerts and all the news and information directly impacting March Madness and your bracket; highlights and analysis clips delivered directly to your mobile device with exclusive Bracket Bound video alerts; access to premium text content such as top-10 lists, players to watch, underachievers and which teams perform best/worst come tournament time.

Pretty awesome, we’d say. iPhone link here, Android here.

Do you know any other apps that are perfect for March Madness? Let us know in the comments!