Barack Obama had a fun little tradition of making his NCAA tournament bracket picks with ESPN during the course of his presidency. Obama may have checked out of the White House in January, but the former president is still making sure to share his bracket picks ahead of the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
On Wednesday, Obama shared his picks for the tournaments on his foundation’s website rather than on ESPN or any other network. We’ll start with the obvious pick on these brackets, which is Obama picking the UConn women to win it all. Obama has the Huskies taking down Washington in the Final Four and Notre Dame in the championship game.
But what about the men’s tournament?
In the spirit of good sportsmanship & good citizenship, here are @barackobama's picks for #MarchMadness 2017: https://t.co/wRuCz6LBvc pic.twitter.com/UrZkpbkZHi
— The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) March 15, 2017
Obama is picking an all-Tobacco Road clash for the championship, with North Carolina edging rival Duke. To get there, UNC will have to take down Kansas and Duke will have to get by Arizona. Obama has the Blue Devils taking out last year’s national champion, Villanova, in the regional final.
It is good to see Obama carry on this little tradition. Donald Trump has announced he would not be making any bracket picks, and we may have to tune into Rachel Maddow’s show in 10 years to find out who he picked in at least two of the regions in this year’s tournament.
Obama is a big basketball fan, but he expressed a desire to keep this tradition of making and sharing his tournament picks going “in the spirit of good sportsmanship and good citizenship.” Remember, these are for entertainment purposes only! But how has Obama done with his tournament brackets in the past?
Well, he fell a little short last year by picking Kansas over UNC for the championship (Kansas lost to Villanova in the regional final; UNC did lose in the finals though, to Villanove). In fact, Obama failed to correctly pick a national champion as president. He does, however, tend to do fairly well overall. Before last year’s tournament, Mashable researched the numbers and calculated Obama’s picks to be correct 64% of the time. The average bracket tends to have an accuracy of about 70%
Obama may be a basketball fan, but relying on him for your bracket advice may not be the best decision you could make.
