“Pres Obama Filled Out His Bracket Predictions for the 2011 NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball (2193 hits)
Tournaments exclusively with ESPN.com senior writer Andy Katz (men's) and ESPN basketball analyst Doris Burke (women's). The segments will debut on ESPN's SportsCenter [today] at noon ET and Friday … at 9 a.m., respectively. … This marks the third straight year in which President Obama has completed a men's bracket exclusively with ESPN and the second he has publicly provided his bracket for the women's tournament. … The President is predicting a Men's Final Four of Duke, Kansas, Ohio State and Pittsburgh and a Women's Final Four of Baylor, Connecticut, Stanford and Tennessee [also the No. 1 seeds]. …
“President Obama opened up with a plea for bracket participants to keep the people of Japan front of mind, saying, 'One thing I wanted to make sure that viewers who are filling out their brackets -- this is a great tradition, we have fun every year doing it -- but while you're doing it, if you're on your laptop, et cetera, go to usaid.gov and that's going to list a whole range of charities where you can potentially contribute to help the people who have been devastated in Japan. I think that would be a great gesture as you're filling out your brackets.' … President Obama's 2010 men's bracket ranked 2,337,604 overall, placing him in the 51st percentile out of the 5.4 million entries in the ESPN Tournament Challenge. While he didn't predict any of the Final Four teams last year, he correctly picked North Carolina to win the National Championship in 2009.”
--(Former) President Clinton answers questions about Georgetown Basketball from guest blogger Joe Lockhart on Casual Hoya: “College basketball - both the men's and women's game - showcases both the abilities of individual players and the power and spirit of teamwork all season long. Pro-basketball has a higher percentage of gifted athletes, but isn't as interesting to watch until the playoffs.” http://sbn.to/efqiHe
SPORTS BLINK -- BARACK-ETOLOGY EDITION - President Obama's brackets -- Men's Final Four: Ohio State beating Duke and Kansas beating Pittsburgh, with Kansas beating Ohio State in final. Women's Final Four: UConn beating Tennessee and Baylor beating Stanford, with UConn beating Baylor in final. ESPN video of the president making his picks in the Map Room http://es.pn/i9ojeY PDFs of his brackets http://1.usa.gov/hP7vxw
