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Basketball: Obama picks Terps over Bears
By Jeff Faraudo
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 2:06 pm in Basketball.
President Barack Obama picked Maryland to beat Cal in the NCAA Tournament bracket he filled out for ESPN.
“I’m kind of disappointed because I’m from the south side of Chicago,” point guard Jerome Randle said of the president, who also has Chicago roots.
“I’m defintely an Obama fan, maybe Obama isn’t a Cal fan,” added junior guard Patrick Christopher. “We’ll be OK. Everybody isn’t always going to necessarily be on our side. That hasn’t stopped us from trying to achieve what we want to achieve.”
Maryland’s players were tickled to have Obama’s support. “It felt good that the president knows about us and has confidence in us,” guard Adrian Bowie said.
“It’s pretty cool, but we’ve got to earn our wins in the tournament,” point guard Greivis Vasquez said. “We know we’re going to face a good team. It’ll probably help a little bit. I want to win on the court.”
Cal small forward Theo Robertson noted that Obama picked just one of six Pac-10 teams to win its opening game. “There wasn’t a lot of Pac-10 love from our president,” Robertson said.
Obama’s picks were Maryland over Cal, Utah over Arizona, Boston College over USC, Temple over USC and Virginia Commonwealth over UCLA. He predicts Washington will beat Mississippi State.
My first-round picks for the six Pac-10 teams: Exactly the opposite of the president’s.
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March 18th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Simple answer — Maryland is a local homer pick. He’s in DC, he has to pick them in a close match up. If he doesn’t, it looks bad.
March 18th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Milo, i was tempted to think the same way at first, and it may very well be the correct explanation, but considering the fact that he picked against almost every pac-10 teams perhaps points to a deeper lack of respect for the pac-10 in general, not that that would be any surprise
March 18th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Abe – I noticed that too. Perhaps it a bit of revenge for OSU and bro-in-law not making the dance. The P10 is weak this year but I agree, he has east bias. Luckily it’s only hoops…there’s other stuff to be worried about.
March 18th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
If you watch the ESPN segment where he is actually explaining his picks, he says something along the lines of “even though my brother-in-law coaches there, the Pac-10 is weak this year.” It was definitely a conscious decision to pick against the Pac.
March 19th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Fortunately for the Terps, the Bears had an off-day. I wish the Terps luck in the rest of the tournament.