Obama Bracket: President Picks His NCAA March Madness Final Four! Will He Get It Wrong Again? 'Barack-etology' Is Only 1 For 5!
In what has been an annual tradition, US President and basketball fan Barack Obama took time out to make his annual NCAA March Madness bracket.
The President will share this TV event with ESPN and their college basketball analyst, Andy Katz. ESPN reports: "President Barack Obama, the nation's first basketball fan, took marker to bracket with ESPN again at the White House and selected defending tournament champion Louisville, No. 1 overall seed Florida, top seed Arizona and Michigan State to advance to this year's NCAA men's Final Four.
The paths Obama took to arrive at his 2014 Final Four, an event that has come to be known as "Barack-etology", will be revealed on SportsCenter at 11 p.m. ET Tuesday. The president's complete picks - this is the sixth consecutive year he's made them with ESPN's Andy Katz -- will be announced Wednesday on the 9 a.m. ET edition of SportsCenter."
Obama picked two number one seeds: Florida, who is the overall top ranked team, and Arizona. Both teams were undefeated for the most part of the year. The president also picked Louisville, the defending champion who is ranked 4th in the Midwest region and Michigan State, another 4th seed from the East region.
It should be noted that the President has very safe choices. The two no. 1s are a given, and they are perennially strong programs Florida has won multiple championships in 2006-07 (behind Joakim Noah). Arizona had their last finals appearance in 2001. Louisville just won the championship and Michigan State recently lost to Kentucky in the Finals in 2009.
Incidentally, the 2009 Finals where North Carolina won the championship was the first and only time Obama correctly predicted the champion. That means he's only 1 for 5 (20%) since they started this exercise.
Looks like the CIA doesn't have any secret information to help the president. His bracket last year "ranked 2,080,996 out of 8.15 million entries in ESPN.com's free ESPN Men's Tournament Challenge, placing him in the 74.4th percentile." (data from ESPN)
Will he get it right this time? The complete picks of the President, including the champion, will be released on Wednesday, March 19.
