By Scott Goldman, National Desk For the third straight year, President Barack Obama has picked Ohio State to make the Final Four. He was right last season, but wrong in 2011, when the No. 1 seed Buckeyes were upset in the Sweet 16. Obama's other picks for the Final Four are Indiana, Florida and Louisville. The President does appear...
By Scott Goldman, National Desk
President Obama makes his selections for the NCAA tournament with ESPN's Andy Katz.
For the third straight year, President Barack Obama has picked Ohio State to make the Final Four.
He was right last season, but wrong in 2011, when the No. 1 seed Buckeyes were upset in the Sweet 16.
Obama's other picks for the Final Four are Indiana, Florida and Louisville.
The President does appear to enjoy Big Ten teams, also picking Michigan to get to the Elite Eight and Michigan State getting to the Sweet 16.
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Every. Single. Game. Brendan Prunty of The Star-Ledger has gone ahead and predicted, in detail, all 67 games in the tournament. It's a great cheat sheet for anyone looking to try and pick second-round upsets and how to decide who goes to the Sweet 16 between No. 11 seed Minnesota vs. No. 14 Northwestern State, if you agree with Brendan's opening upset picks. (He picks Minnesota, by the way)
No spoiler alerts here. You'll have to click and find out. I will say this — he's got a very interesting Final Four put together.
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First four: In the first game of the tournament, substitute guard Jeremy Underwood tripled his average with 19 points and North Carolina A&T survived a last-second scare for a 73-72 win over Liberty, which ended the season with 21 losses. Then, Matthew Dellavedova emerged from his slump and scored 22 points as St. Mary's notched a 67-54 victory over Middle Tennessee in the tournament's second game.
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» We've got all the opening-round matchups and TV schedules and tip-off times for Thursday and Friday.
» During Syracuse's restorative romp through the Big East Tournament, they suddenly discovered an emerging threat from three-point land. C.J. Fair made eight of his 11 3-point attempts. For the season, he's shooting 49 percent from the deep perimeter. From a statistical standpoint, no Syracuse regulars shoot it better from 3-point range. That should be a big plus for the Orange as they tackle Montana Thursday night in their opening game.
Because Fair isn't just improving his outside shooting, he's got some serious game around the basket as well:
» If their second-round game is really a battle between big, bad, Big Ten battle-tested Michigan State and a Valparaiso team with history of being a Cinderella, the Spartans weren't making it out to be that. Keith Appling and Adreian Payne were among the Spartans too young to recognize the famous Bryce Drew buzzer first-round beater in 1998 that helped Valparaiso pull off an upset. In fact Drew, now the coach of the Crusaders, said he had a player on his team last season that hadn't realized he was the one who hit "The Shot."
What shot? You know, The Shot:
The 38-year-old Drew has put together a Horizon League championship team that will take on Tom Izzo's team in what amounts to a Thursday home game for the Spartans at The Palace of Auburn Hills, using an all-senior lineup without a starter taller than 6-foot-8. But No. 3-seeded Michigan State isn't looking past No. 14-seeded Valparaiso despite the advantage in NCAA tournament stature and size.
» Michigan sophomore point guard Trey Burke has been named Sports Illustrated's men's college basketball Player of the Year. The announcement is scheduled to appear in this week's SI NCAA tournament preview issue. Burke becomes Michigan's first national player of the year since Cazzie Russell was named NCAA Player of the Year in 1966. The sophomore was also named to SI's five-man All-America team, joining Oklahoma State's Marcus Smart, Creighton's Doug McDermott, Gonzaga's Kelly Olynyk and Indiana's Cody Zeller.