President Obama and his stat guru Nate Silver can only hope for Hillary Clinton’s coin flip luck to save the last Barack-etology. The Breitbart Sports All-American bracket’s domination means Obama would need to be correct on all nine of the remaining games on which the two disagree.
The President needs Iowa State and Oklahoma to lose their next game and Duke to lose one of the next two. If all three of those happen, he still needs Virginia to win again, Texas A&M to win twice and UNC to win three to make it the championship game to top the All-American bracket based on the Breitbart Sports All-Americans and All-Conference picks based mainly on the point value of each player and the player’s chance at making the NBA in the Value Add Basketball database. Here are all the brackets:
| Team | Actual | All-Am | My Gut | Obama | Silver | NBA | Hot | Anal | Healthy | PG | Seed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Correct So Far | 48 | 36 | 31 | 31 | 31 | 32 | 30 | 30 | 27 | 30 | 27 |
| Kansas | 2 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 6 |
| Maryland | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Miami FL | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Villanova | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Oregon | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| Duke | 2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Texas A&M | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Oklahoma | 2 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 3 |
| North Carolina | 2 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 5 |
| Indiana | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| Notre Dame | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| Wisconsin | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| Virginia | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| Iowa St. | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Gonzaga | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
| Syracuse | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
The table above is the account of how many lines each bracket has picked correctly so far, and how many wins each predicted for the remaining 16 teams (each of these have won two games but can keep winning for brackets that picked them to win three or more).
Silver Gave SFA 6% Chance, But They Led Until Final Second
The most impressive near-miss was by Stephen F. Austin (SFA), which the All-American bracket picked to become the first 14-seed to make the Sweet 16 since 1997. The prediction was correct for the first 79 minutes and 59 seconds of SFA’s tournament as Breitbart Sports All-American Thomas Walkup torched both West Virginia and Notre Dame — however the Irish came through with an incredible tip of their missed shot in the final second to deny SFA.
Nate Silver’s original predictions on March 14, on which the counts above are based, gave SFA only a six percent chance of making the Sweet 16 but they were that close.
That game and Texas A&M’s rally from 12 points down with just 44 seconds remaining against Northern Iowa kept the chances alive of President Obama passing the All-American bracket. However, he would need a perfect streak that even surpassed Hillary Clinton’s incredible string of winning coin flips and high cards to break ties against Bernie Sanders.
In fact, Obama’s bracket was not the disaster it was last year. While he went with mainly favorites, his 31 correct picks is the same as Silver and my “gut” picks in which I took a shot of huge upsets of Virginia and Oregon this weekend — both of which survived.
The only bracket besides the Breitbart Sports All-American bracket that is better than Obama and Silver right now is the bracket based on how many NBA players www.valueaddbasketball.com projects will come out of each school, which yielded 32 correct picks so far.
Someone who simply went with the better seed would have just 27 picks, which is considered “par” in brackets. Those who picked based on experienced guards, pure analytical numbers and which teams were the hottest would have 30 correct picks — one behind Obama, Silver and me.
The All-American bracket has simply been by far the best bracket this year, so we will run through its picks for the Sweet 16:
South
Kansas (Frank Mason and Perry Ellis both 5th Team All-American — Iowa State only other with two All-Americans — and Wayne Selden 2nd Team All-Big 12) over Maryland (Melo Trimble 5th team All-American, Robert Carter, and Diamond Stone 2nd Team)
Villanova (Josh Hart 1st Team All-Big East, Ryan Arcidiacono, and Daniel Ochefu 2nd Team All-Big East) over Miami (Sheldon McClellan 2nd Team All-ACC)
West
Duke (Grayson Allen 2nd team All-American and Brandon Ingram 1st Team All-ACC) over Oregon (Dillon Brooks and Chris Boucher both 2nd Team All-Pac 12)
Oklahoma (Buddy Hield National Player of the Year and Isaiah Cousins 2nd Team All-Big 12) over Texas A&M (None, just incredible balance)
East
North Carolina (Brice Johnson 2nd team All-American) vs. Indiana (Yogi Ferrell 4th team All-American) — All-American bracket picked Kentucky
Notre Dame (Demetrius Jackson 2nd team All-ACC) vs. Wisconsin (Nigel Hayes 1st Team All-Big Ten) — All-American bracket picked Stephen F. Austin
Midwest
Iowa State (Monte Morris 2nd Team All-American, Georges Niang 5th Team All-American — only team besides Kansas with two Breitbart All-Americans) over Virginia (Malcolm Brogdon 3rd team All-American)
Gonzaga (Kyle Wiltjer Player of the Year in West Coast Conference and Domantas Sabonis 1st Team All-WCC) vs. Syracuse (Michael Gbinije 2nd Team All-ACC) — All-American bracket picked Michigan State
The method for determining the Breitbart Sports All-American Bracket and the other approaches is explained here.
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