by Chris Strauss, USA TODAY Sports
The first time Barack Obama filled
out an NCAA tournament bracket as president, he ended up picking the
eventual national champion. He's hoping to have the same luck with the
first try of his second term, as ESPN released the president's 2013
Final Four picks.
The commander-in-chief likes
Louisville, Indiana, Ohio State and Florida to make it to Atlanta, with
Baylor, Connecticut, Notre Dame and California advancing in the women's
bracket.
Obama revealed his entire men's bracket Wednesday morning on Sportscenter,
picking Louisville and Indiana to advance to the men's national title
game, with Indiana winning the whole thing. The president picked a few
potential upsets in the second round, taking two 11 seeds over sixes,
with Belmont defeating Arizona and Minnesota beating UCLA.
He likely hopes to improve on his performance last year,
when he picked North Carolina to beat Kentucky, with Missouri and Ohio
State rounding out his Final Four. Missouri's opening round loss to
Norfolk State ended up ruining that prospect, while North Carolina lost
to eventual runner-up Kansas in the Elite 8.
In 2010
and 2011, Obama picked Kansas to win the title, with the Jayhawks
suffering early losses in both tournaments. He certainly proved his
proficiency in the early rounds in 2011 though, nailing 29 of the first
32 games to rank 492nd out of 5.9 million brackets heading into the
Sweet 16 that year.
The president correctly picked North
Carolina to win the title in 2009, the only one of his Final Four teams
to advance that year.
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