President Barack Obama, the nations first basketball fan, took marker to bracket with ESPN again at the White House and selected Michigan State to defeat defending champion Louisville in the NCAA mens tournament title game. The path Obama took to arrive at his national champion, an event that has come to be known as Barack-etology, was revealed on SportsCenter at 9:30 a.m. ET Wednesday. It is the sixth consecutive year hes made them with ESPNs Andy Katz. Tom Izzo is a great tournament coach, Obama said. Ive got Michigan State going all the way. ... He know how to motivate folks and he knows how to coach. My pick: Michigan State. Bring it home for me. Its been a while since Ive won my pool. Besides the fourth-seeded Spartans and Cardinals, President Obama also selected No. 1 overall seed Florida and top seed Arizona to reach the Final Four in Arlington, Texas. I know these are not imaginative picks, but I think theyre the right ones, Obama said of his Final Four picks. Among other picks of note, Obama likes two 12-seeds to pull off upsets in their NCAA tournament openers -- Harvard over Cincinnati, and North Dakota State over Oklahoma. The president also likes North Carolina to upset 3-seed Iowa State to reach the Sweet 16. Obama has picked three different teams in the Barack-etology era to win the mens title -- Indiana (over Louisville in 2013), Kansas (over Ohio State in 2011 and Kentucky in 2010) and North Carolina (over Kentucky in 2012 and Louisville in 2009). His correctly picked national champion was the Tar Heels in 09. Last year, Obamas mens bracket ranked No. 2,080,996 out of 8.15 million entries in ESPNs free Mens Tournament Challenge, placing him in the 74.4th percentile. The president correctly picked Louisville to play in the 2013 championship game, predicting a loss to Indiana for the title. In fact, the Hoosiers fell short of the Final Four and the Cardinals defeated Michigan 82-76 in what the president said was one of the best championship games that any of us have seen in a very, very long time. Florida in the South Region and Arizona in the West are the only top seeds represented in the presidents Final Four. The other top seeds in the tournament are undefeated Wichita State in the Midwest and Virginia in the East. The Cardinals and Spartans finished their seasons by winning their conference tournaments and are popular picks to make it to the Final Four. The president is an avid fan of the college game and his hometown Chicago Bulls, and his brother-in-law is the head coach at Oregon State.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 15:01:45 +0000
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