President Barack Obama
Please click here to see President Obama’s 2010 Barackets, and get analysis after Round 2
After Round 1 of the 2010 NCAA March Madness Tournament, President Barack Obama’s ESPN Barackets is beating 96.5% of over 4.5 million entries!
See Obama’s 2010 March Madness Brackets here.
See Obama’s rationale in his picks via the ESPN video here.
Obama got 25 of 32 games correct for 250 points since each game in this round was worth 10 points. Three top entries were tied at a remarkable 310 points or 31 of 32 correct! There is no rewards for upsets in the ESPN system so these brackets encouraged going with the favourites rather than picking upsets. That left the President at a rank of 160,151 or sitting in the 96.6th percentile. That means he is ahead of 96.5% of the entries of over 4.5 million entries!
An analogy for that statistic would be the Prez is beating 29 out of every 30 entrants, sitting in 2nd place in such a sample. With over 4.5 million entries, that’s far more than a big enough sample to safely declare the President ahead of 96.5% of all bracket entries out there. He knew his basketball in Round 1, unlike last year when he admitted he got killed in the early rounds.
However, Obama could be in a lot of trouble for the next rounds, each of which is also worth 320 points.
That’s because Obama has already lost one of his Elite Eight teams in Georgetown. That’s 40 points he won’t be getting in that round for sure. I wonder if that were a political pick because Georgetown is, of course, in Washington DC. There weren’t too many Chicago or Illinois teams that stood much of a chance this year to go far.
Obama has also already lost two of his Sweet Sixteen teams with Georgetown and Marquette. That’s another 40 points he won’t be getting in that round.
ESPN lists Obama’s potential points remaining (PPR) at 1,520 after Round 1.
Of course, other people will have likely lost some of those teams already as well. The fact most of them lost more teams this first round only suggest they have a greater chance of losing more teams in the later rounds already than Obama. However, that’s not necessarily true.
My ESPN brackets are sitting at 210 points, or 2,978,307 or ahead of a very lousy 37.6 percent of the entries. Basically, I’m in 6th place out of every 8 people! OUCH! Yet, because I haven’t lost any Elite Eight teams, and the same Georgetown pick as Obama for the Sweet Sixteen, my potential points remaining is 1,580. That could make up the 40 points different the President has on me after Round 1. So despite being over 2.8 million spots back of da Prez right now, I could still end up putting the slamma jamma on Obama!
All that said, the President is doing relatively well among ESPN’s featured brackets.
 President Obama |
 LeBron James |
 Dick Vitale |
 Joe Lunardi |
 Bill Simmons |
 Matthew Berry |
 Mike Greenberg |
 Mike Golic |
 Colin Cowherd |
 Michelle Beadle |
 Scott Van Pelt |
 Tony Reali |
Obama is first among them after Round 1. In fact, he’s cleaning house… including dunking on LeBron James!
I guess in America, it’s da Prez that rules, not the King. They got rid of him a long time ago! 🙂
You can look at each featured bracket’s potential points remaining if you’d like by clicking on the links above.
How are you doing after the first round if you played? How many games did you get right?
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 5.8
Digital Citizen 