Presidential Bracketology

March 16, 2017 by Southpaw Leave a Comment

Barry’s brackets

President Obama took time to appear on ESPN over the years to discuss his picks for the NCAA Tournament. Sports analysts would yuck it up with the President and then comment on the selections he made. This year, President Trump decided that he didn’t want to fill out a bracket. I was devastated because March Madness is totally YUGE and know that he would have constructed the perfect bracket. However, Barry O. made sure to keep the tradition going.

The Obama Foundation tweeted out his picks this year, and once again, Obama failed to deliver. As a Democrat, I fully respect the man as a politician. As a college basketball fan, I’m completely disappointed in his selection process. I will give him some praise, he did pick Michigan to make it to the Elite 8 this year, but every last one of his picks are highly predictable. Considering the guy introduced our country to universal healthcare, I expect him to be a risk taker.

Every single year, Obama picks the same top seeded teams to win it all. In fact, he picked a #1 seeded team to win the tournament every year during his presidency except for 2014. I’ll give him some credit for that one. Picking Michigan State when they were a #4 seed was pretty gutsy, but it still isn’t that risky when you have Tom Izzo at the helm. Hey, it’s totally understandable that you expect the teams with a better regular season record to win it all, but Obama didn’t pick the winner once throughout his presidency.

Now, do higher seeded teams usually win the tournament? Yes. Is it probably the safer/smarter bet? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with it. If you’re not going to pick the winner, you should be going with some wildcard picks. He’s the freakin’ president of the United States. He should have known that UConn was going to win it all as a #7 seed back in 2014.

Southpaw’s Picks

Overall, the bracket that he put together seems to be pretty solid, so let’s just see how he does this year. I’m sure he’s knocking back cold ones and watching the tournament on one of Richard Branson’s yachts right now. For the sake of friendly competition, I’ve posted a copy of my bracket, so let’s see how Obama stacks up to Southpaw’s when the nets get cut down.

I don’t follow the sport, but I’ll bet that even Southpaw would have been a better president. – Pops

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