Basketball | Obama picks undefeated Kentucky to win NCAA title

Kentucky forward Willie Cauley-Stein (15) dunks the ball as Auburn forward Alex Thompson (20) and Auburn guard Devin Waddell look on during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game

President Barack Obama is picking the University of Kentucky Wildcats to win the men’s college basketball championship next month. Saying he thinks they can have an undefeated tournament after winning all 34 of their regular season games, Obama told ESPN he picked Kentucky to beat Villanova University’s team in a Wildcats versus Wildcats final on April 6.
“There’s a reason they’re the favorite,” he said in an interview telecast yesterday from the White House. “They’re a really good team.” Obama rounded out his Final Four in the tournament with the University of Arizona and Duke University. In his five years of picking brackets in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s tournament as president, Obama has chosen the winner correctly only once. That was in 2009 when he picked the University of North Carolina.
Of Arizona, Obama said they’re a team that doesn’t get as much attention as they should because their West Coast games are aired after people on the East Coast have gone to bed. He also said it pains him to pick the University of Louisville to lose in the “Elite Eight” – the final eight teams – because Rick “Pitino’s such a great coach.”
Obama also said he’d support rule changes for college hoops to speed the game like the National Basketball Association has done. He called for a 30-second shot clock in college basketball.
While he considers himself an avid basketball fan and says he wishes he had more time to watch ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” Obama in his budget proposal in February proposed ending a tax deduction for donors who give to colleges in exchange for seats at sporting events. Angela Greiling Keane, Bloomberg