Please click here to see President Obama’s 2010 Barackets, and get analysis after Round 3
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If President Obama’s economic stimulus plan turns out as well as his 2009 NCAA March Madness Brackets, aka the Barackets, then Americans and the rest of the world doesn’t have a lot to worry about.
President Barack Obama's March Madness 2009 Brackets (click to enlarge)
He did relatively well overall, as shown from the scoring system analysis below. Such a score would have placed him in about the top 10% from what I have seen in some large polls like the one on Facebook and CBS Sports. But more importantly, especially, he correctly picked the University of North Carolina to win it all after the Tar Heels dismantled the Michigan Spartans 89-72.
Here’s a recap and final analysis of the President’s performance and journey through the bracket developments this year.
On March 19, President Barack Obama shared his bracket picks, as well as reasoning, worldwide in an ESPN video. Now, for any of you not familiar with ill-advised actions for a politician, picking winners and losers is something politicians do not like to do! That’s because they lose votes any time they have to pick winners cause someone loses. For someone like a President of the United States to be playing favourites, especially with the risk of getting things very wrong as is very easy to do in March Madness, was a huge public relations risk. However, all that did was showed the President’s confidence and as the final result showed tonight, with UNC winning as picked by the Prez, that confidence was not false… even if he generally had a pretty safe set of picks. But that’s a risk on its own as they don’t call it March Madness for nothing, you know! That, America, you should take note as you look to him for more leadership in uncertain times upcoming.
The road the President took to get here started out great. He had 14 of 16 teams correctly picked for the Sweet Sixteen Round and was doing great on any of the popular scoring systems used to track NCAA brackets.
Unfortunately, the middle of the road was bumpy, leaving the President with only North Carolina among the Final Four teams. That might well be a sign Americans need to heed as they go through this economic downturn and recovery. Some things might go wrong, not turn out well, seem like a bad choice. However, the big and most important one will be on track and you should hang on hope for that.
President Barack Obama
That’s because North Carolina ended up winning it all, which, as typical of the American winner-take-all mentality, should be all that matters to you. And not only did they win it all, they won it convincingly. If the President’s performance was an indicator of how he will get through this economic downturn, or maybe for his term, he’s going to do quite all right!
So way to go, Mr President! You’ve got a great reason to smile!
And congratulations to the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, especially Tyler Hansbrough on a fairy tale college career!
I picked you, too!
Finally, here, for you nerds keeping score, is the final tally from the scoring systems in which I have used to analyze the President’s performance throughout the past few weeks.
Scoring System 1
(32 points per round like CBS Bracket Challenge)
If you are in a betting pool with your NCAA brackets, chances are you are using this scoring system. This system rewards 1 point for a win in the first round, 2 in the second, 4 in the third, 8 in the fourth, 16 in the fifth and 32 to the ultimate winner. Upsets gives nothing extra.
The maximum points is 192.
In this system, President Barack Obama has 122 points after four rounds. But don’t forget, it’s not like very many scored 192 or that much higher. Anybody not picking North Carolina would have lost 32 points and sat at 160 automatically, never mind any other potential losses!
Scoring System 1 + 1
(scoring system 1 + 1 point for each upset)
Some pools reward upsets in a minimal sort of way with one point for each upset. It’s not much but it could make the difference between similar results of correct games picked.
In this system, President Barack Obama has 124 points. There weren’t that many upsets this year relative to other years so the overall total was not much higher than 192. But because the President had a relatively safe set of picks, he didn’t not have many upsets on which to capitalize, and he did pick a few of them correctly.
Scoring System 1 + D
(scoring system 1 +ranking difference for upsets)
This system is used by the Canadian channel The Score in its pool, which I am in, though I didn’t read the D rule because I would have picked very differently for some underdog teams.
In this system, President Barack Obama has 124 points . It wouldn’t be fair to put this one on the President because it has a very different strategy I described in the original scoring system post. Picking safe is not the way to go to do super well in this tournament. That said, 124 points is a pretty respectable score. I know. I did only a little better and placed quite respectably.
Scoring System 2
(1 point per game)
This European style scoring system values the overall judgment and minimize fluke results of someone selecting the correct ultimate winner despite performing not so great otherwise.
The maximum points for the first four rounds is 60, out of 63 eventually.
In this system, President Barack Obama has 40 points after four rounds. Forty points is quite respectable among all the brackets.
SO HOW DID YOU DO COMPARED TO DA PREZ?
Final 2009 March Madness Brackets (click to enlarge)
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