For eight years, it was an annual tradition that Barack Obama would release his presidential NCAA Tournament brackets, often in a special on ESPN with college basketball analyst Andy Katz.
Obama is no longer in office and Donald Trump is apparently not a huge college hoops fan, so the presidential bracket is no more, but that doesn’t stop Obama from giving the public his basketball takes for both the men’s and women’s tournaments. No. 44 made his picks for this year’s tournaments public on Wednesday, and while there’s little in the way of surprise on the women’s side, he is rolling with a 3-seed for the men.
For the women, he has UConn winning yet another national title, taking down Notre Dame and then Mississippi State in his all chalk Final Four. On the men’s side, it’s Michigan State that he’s riding with to win the national championship, as he has Sparty taking down Villanova and then Virginia in his Final Four.
Just because I have more time to watch games doesn’t mean my picks will be better, but here are my brackets this year: https://t.co/ETRchPcZxF pic.twitter.com/gnNXw0Ysxr
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 14, 2018
His men’s bracket doesn’t call for a ton of upsets, as he’s going with 11-seed Loyola-Chicago (unsurprising being a Chicago guy) as his biggest upset, as well as three 10s over 7s with Oklahoma over Rhode Island, Texas over Nevada and Butler over Arkansas.
His women’s bracket is extremely chalky, with an Elite Eight featuring all four one seeds, three two seeds and one three seed (UCLA), with all four one seeds advancing to the Final Four. In any case, you can ride with or fade No. 44 at will in your bracket at home and see if your picks can fare better than our former president’s.
