Obama’s NCAA Tournament Bracket is Out, and He’s Committed March Madness Heresy By Picking All No. 1 Seeds to Go to the Final Four

Former President Barack Obama’s annual NCAA Tournament bracket is out, and it is unlikely to sit well with March Madness purists.

Bloomberg White House correspondent Justin Sink shared the former president’s bracket Thursday via Twitter, just hours ahead of tipoff for the field of 68. And in it, Obama doesn’t stray from conventional wisdom at all. In fact, the former president is breaking a cardinal rule of March Madness by picking all No. 1 seeds to advance to the Final Four:

obama going chalk across the bracket – all four no 1 seeds in the final four and gonzaga winning pic.twitter.com/pTslbTYOgV

— Justin Sink (@justinsink) March 18, 2021

The former president, in his dreary forecast, showed absolutely no willingness to go out on a limb and predict some of the upsets that make March Madness so great. In 25 of the 32 first round games, Obama is picking the higher-seeded team to win. He does have a pair of 12 seeds pulling off mild upsets — taking Georgetown to beat Colorado and UC Santa Barbara to topple Creighton. He also, in his lone creative flourish, has 13 seed Ohio advancing all the way to the Sweet 16. But that’s as out of the box as he gets.

Indeed, Obama’s Final Four is chalk city. He’s got top seeds Gonzaga, Michigan, Baylor, and Illinois moving on to the Final Four — with heavy Tournament favorite Gonzaga winning it all.

While he was in office, Obama began a tradition of inviting ESPN to watch him fill out his brackets on the eve of the Big Dance. Northeastern University actually conducted a study of his brackets from 2009-2018, which shows that his strategy of picking top seeds is nothing new. The tactic has, however, yielded results. He has averaged more than 39 correct picks out of 63 games during those 10 years, and had a few standout brackets during that time.

Still, where’s the fun in that? It’s March Madness. Roll the dice, Mr. President.