Former President Barack Obama, known as one of the world's most famous basketball fans, has unveiled his 2024 NCAA basketball tournament brackets. Obama shared his March Madness bracket exclusively on "CBS Mornings" and discussed his annual tradition of making his picks public.
His men's final four picks include UConn, Kentucky, Baylor, and Purdue, with UConn and Kentucky facing off in the championship game, where he predicts UConn to claim victory for the second consecutive year.
On the women's side, Obama selected South Carolina, Stanford, USC, and Iowa for the final four, anticipating a final showdown between South Carolina and Iowa, with South Carolina emerging as the champion.
Despite his track record of inaccurate predictions, Obama has continued to release his bracket every year since his presidency began in 2009. CBS News' Vlad Duthiers jokingly mentioned on "CBS Mornings" that Obama's picks are often off the mark, except for one instance, which the former president attributes to his "master plan."
In a recent episode of the "Ways to Win" podcast hosted by his brother-in-law Craig Robinson, Obama elaborated on his motivation for sharing his bracket selections.
"My attitude is, you know, it gives people great pleasure with all the intelligence I have available to me – you know, the CIA, the NSA, all of that input – when they beat me, they feel good. I want to give people that satisfaction," he joked.
Obama predicted the winner of the 2009 NCAA tournament – North Carolina – and people were impressed of the new president's basketball knowledge.
"They thought, 'Look at the president of theUnited States. He's in the top 4% of all the people who enter in their brackets publicly.' And I was kind of feeling it, and I thought, 'You know what, I think this is what's going to happen every year,'" he said on the podcast. "And I'm pretty sure each year I've lost since then. So, I have not necessarily picked a winner [lately]."
The odds of a perfect bracket are 1 in 120 billion. But two Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates attempted to build a computer model that would beat the odds. "Picking the teams that are going to win that are like the favorites, that will get you an OK bracket. But if you want to win, you gotta pick the upsets. That's the secret sauce," Tauhid Zaman told Duthiers last year.
If you don't have access to such technology, Shawn Chao recommends keeping an eye on the first round, saying there are "typically" about "10 upsets or so."
"It's a well-known fact that the underdog often prevails in matchups between the sixth-ranked team and the 11th-ranked team, with the 11th-ranked team emerging victorious approximately 3 out of 7 times," Chao explained.
Viewers can catch all the action of the NCAA Tournament on CBS, TBS, truTV, and TNT, with each network televising a different number of games. CBS and TBS will showcase 21 games each, while truTV and TNT will broadcast 13 and 12 games, respectively.
