*President Barack Obama has revealed his 2013 NCAA Tournament predictions and has picked the Indiana Hoosiers to win the national championship.
Revealing his Final Four selections to Andy Katz of ESPN, Obama selected a pair of No. 1 seeds, Louisville and Indiana, to advance to the Final Four in the men’s bracket along with No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Florida.
In a projected final between Rick Pitino’s Cardinals and Tom Crean’s Hoosiers, Obama picked Indiana to cut down the nets.
“There will be a theme here,” Obama told Katz as he filled out the bracket, “and that is I really do think the Big Ten was far and away the best conference this year.” [Scroll down to watch.]
In the women’s bracket, Obama selected Brittney Griner and the Lady Bears of Baylor to reach their second straight Final Four, joining Notre Dame, UConn and California in New Orleans. Baylor is the No. 1 overall seed in the women’s bracket and attempting to win its second consecutive national championship.
This is the fifth straight year that Obama has shared his bracket predictions with ESPN. He correctly picked two Final Four teams in 2012 and correctly tapped Kentucky to appear in the final, but his pick of UNC as national champion didn’t pan out as Roy Williams’ club was eliminated in the Elite Eight. In 2009, Obama did correctly pick the Tar Heels to win it all.
The president recently came under fire for his annual March Madness bracketeering.
“I’ll bet you this. I bet you he spends more time filling out his March Madness brackets than he does writing a budget,” House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) recently said on Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”
Even before McCarthy’s dig, Obama made light of the criticism leveled at the way he spends his off hours.
“We face major challenges. March in particular is going to be full of tough decisions. But I want to assure you, I have my top advisers working around the clock. After all, my March Madness bracket isn’t going to fill itself out,” Obama said during the Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner, via The Associated Press. “And don’t worry — there is an entire team in the Situation Room as we speak, planning my next golf outing, right now at this moment.”
According to ESPN, Obama’s 2012 men’s bracket ranked 2,347,421 out of 6.45 million entries, placing him in the 63.6th percentile.
Naw, they’re to soft and the coaching is suspect. Zeller needs to toughen up and Oladippo is great but can’t carry the team without a strong center. Zeller got to hit the boards harder and stop trying to be so nice. Nice guys finish last according to Yogi Berra and he’s RIGHT!! Fanteeking