President Trump declined to indulge college hoops fans by filling out a bracket, but Barack Obama, a known basketball fan, wasn’t going to let the annual tradition pass just because he’s a private citizen again.
The former president shared his picks for the men’ s tournament on Twitter through his Obama Foundation.
In the spirit of good sportsmanship & good citizenship, here are @barackobama's picks for #MarchMadness 2017:… https://t.co/TMrbXhloOH— The Obama Foundation (@The Obama Foundation)1489605396.0
In case that’s not quite legible, you can see bigger images of both his men’s and women’s brackets pulled from the Obama Foundation’s website.
The former president seems to have gotten a bit bolder with his predictions this year, picking bitter rivals UNC and Duke to square off in the men’s final. They are a 1- and a 2-seed, respectively, so it’s not too far a reach, but anytime UNC and Duke are pitted against each other in a finals’ bracket, there is always a measure of wishful thinking.
Filling out the women’s bracket, Obama pits Notre Dame against the mighty and seemingly insurmountable UConn. Save for diehard fans of other teams, few will take too much offense to those picks.
From 2009–2014 Obama accurately predicted an impressive 74.4 percent of the tourney games, according to Hoops Hype. It’s likely he’s put a little more due diligence into this year’s picks, considering he no longer has a country to run, .