ESPN Reveals President Obama's Picks for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship

Woke up this morning to watch ESPN as President Obama's picks for the NCAA Basketball Tournament were revealed:

Barack-etology President Barack Obama makes his selections for the NCAA tournament 

From ESPN:

President Barack Obama is favoring the Big Ten in this year's NCAA tournament, ultimately selecting Indiana to win it all. The president predicted that Louisville, Indiana, Ohio State and Florida will reach the Final Four and that Louisville and Indiana would meet in the title game.

"I'm going with Louisville. I know it's not a surprise pick," he said on a tape shown on "SportsCenter" Wednesday. "And I'm going with Indiana These are the two best teams right now, and for the championship I'm going back to the Big Ten. I think this is Indiana's year." 

Obama filled out brackets for both the men's and women's tournaments Tuesday in an exclusive interview with ESPN. This is the fifth consecutive year Obama has filled out a men's bracket for ESPN. He correctly picked two Final Four teams -- Ohio State and Kentucky -- last season, but his national champion selection of North Carolina lost in the Elite Eight. This year, Obama picked Louisville, the tournament's top overall seed, to reach the Final Four out of the Midwest Region. Obama believes the Hoosiers will win the East Region as the only other No. 1 seed in the Final Four. Obama likes Ohio State for the second straight year, picking the second-seeded Buckeyes to win the West Region. He went with the third-seeded Gators in the South Region. 

The president has Baylor, Connecticut, Notre Dame and California in the Final Four of his women's bracket, which will be unveiled in its entirety Friday.

NCAA Basketball is taking over this week with play-in games last night and tonight - then the real NCAA Tournament kicks off on Thursday morning.  NIT, where teams go that miss the Final 68, started last night with last year's NCAA Tournament Champion, Kentucky, going down to defeat by Robert Morris.  They played the game at Robert Morris due to the fact that Kentucky is hosting some games in the NCAA.  Robert Morris fans stormed the court after the game as this has to be the biggest win in the history of their program.

This time of year people turn into basketball games that haven't watched many all year as this is the Road to the NCAA Championship for 68 teams, eight of them playing games to get into the Tournament.   There were two good games last night for two of the play-in spots won by North Carolina  A&T in a close game with Liberty while St Mary's beat Middle Tennessee.  There will be two more games tonight to complete the brackets.

Tomorrow the NCAA officially begins its 64 Team Tournament Challenge, brackets are being filled out across the Country and now we can see how well we did against the President's picks.  If anyone wonders why President Obama favors the Big 10, it is because he comes from the Big territory with Northwestern in Chicago and University of Illinois downstate.

Today if you are in Norman, you can send off our Men's Basketball team to the NCAA Tournament in Philadelphia from the Lloyd Noble Center around noon.  Since this is Spring Break for OU and Norman Public Schools, you will be seeing a lot of high school kids plus adults who are part of Krug's Crew at the event.  Early Friday morning there is a send-off for our Women's Basketball team to Dayton.  We are one of ten teams in the NCAA where our football program went to a Bowl Game and both of our basketball teams are in the NCAA.

We are used to the girl's being in the Tournament, but our Men's team was down for the last several years missing the tournament until Lon Krueger became the OU Basketball Coach who is in his second season.  Krueger now has OU in the NCAA Tournament which is a record setting fifth team he has taken to the tournament.  The Sooners led by All Big 12 Romero Osby will be playing the last game on Friday night against San Diego State.  Know what this Sooner and many more are going to be doing Friday night at 8:30 - watching our Sooners play San Diego State in Philly.  Might even go buy some Philly Cheesesteaks in honor of Philadelphia today although they are not as good here as the original.

The rest of the week is all about basketball.  The President is in Israel and can imagine, he will be checking his cellphone regularly for scores.  Love how this President is so down to earth with his cell phone, texting, on Twitter, loves playing basketball and just an all around American guy you could have a beer with who happens to be President.  Maybe that's what the media hates - he is down to earth not some pretentious Mitt Romney type.  He has totally earned my respect even if I do disagree with him that Indiana is going to win - I have Louisville against University of Miami in the Finals with Louisville winning.

Must admit that I am slightly prejudiced for University of Miami as the Cincinnati Reds star shortstop Hall of Famer Barry Larkin's son plays for The "U."  Our family ties go deep for the Reds having grown up in Ohio and my Dad being the biggest Red's fan of all.

Good Luck to the Sooners and hope they break my Final Four bracket!

Boomer Sooner!