--- title: Barack Obama Reveals His 2019 March Madness Brackets Picks description: Former president and noted basketball enthusiast Barack Obama just revealed his 2019 March Madness NCAA tournament bracket. canonical: https://time.com/5539532/obama-march-madness-2019/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-03-21T16:10:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:02:47.388Z og:title: Barack Obama Reveals His 2019 March Madness Picks og:description: His Final Four might surprise you og:url: https://time.com/5539532/obama-march-madness-2019/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Barack Obama Reveals His 2019 March Madness Picks twitter:description: His Final Four might surprise you twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Ultimate Basketball Fan Barack Obama Reveals His 2019 March Madness Picks > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ## Video: Georgetown vs. Princeton: The Game That Saved March Madness [Watch (HLS stream): Georgetown vs. Princeton: The Game That Saved March Madness](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/z2mnNZ9m.m3u8) (9:34)  _Published 2014-03-19. No. 16 seed Princeton's near-upset of No. 1 seed Georgetown in a 1989 first-round game made sure Cinderella would always get invited to the ball._  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Mar 21, 2019 4:10 PM UTC  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Mar 21, 2019 4:10 PM UTC Former president and noted basketball enthusiast [Barack Obama](http://time.com/5336305/barack-obamas-best-president-survey/) revealed his NCAA tournament brackets just in time for [March Madness 2019](http://time.com/5188345/march-madness-origins-word-phrase/), continuing a tradition he began while he was in the Oval Office. Obama, who memorably began publicly sharing his brackets during his time as the commander-in-chief, posted his picks for this year’s tourney via the Obama Foundation, [as he did last year](http://time.com/4702883/barack-obama-2017-ncaa-bracket/). This year, Obama has selected the Duke Blue Devils to take it all for the men’s championship, while for the women’s tourney, he selected longtime NCAA champions, the University of Connecticut. For his men’s picks, Obama selected Michigan, Tennessee, UNC, and of course, Duke for the Final Four, predicting that Duke will beat known rival UNC. His decision to select Duke as the champion might have surprised some, as Obama has frequently favored the Tar Heels in his March Madness picks in the past. See all the [Obama bracket picks](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/03/17/all-presidents-picks-see-his-2015-ncaa-tournament-brackets) below. > [](https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1108756096733331456) ## Transcript You could look at it as a David and Goliath. I think that's an American trait, in't it? For Americans to root for the underdog. People like to see the Davids come out and destroy and beat the Goliaths. There were discussions At that point to eliminate the automatic bids from a lot of the quote unquote smaller conferences. There were serious discussions. And just with one game all those discussions came to a screeching halt. Bobby Winston gets a scream from Mueller. Comes up! Fires! We were on a roll in the regular season. Yeah. Georgetown was dominant that year. They won the regular season Big East title. We went to the Big East Tournament and rolled away with that. So we were feeling invincible. We were feeling like no one could beat us. For the Princeton Tigers number 30 will be Chris Markhart. You know Princeton was, they were a young team I think it was a rough year for them. They barely won the league. They lost three games in the league and they needed to win at Harvard to clinch the spot. [ NOISE ] At that point I had achieved my goal, and the team had achieved their goal to be in the tournament, and, and win the Ivy League, so, so this was, I, I don't wanna say gravy. You know, so they're all getting together. There, there, watching the selection show all excited.. When we found out that we were gonna play Georgetown. And they weren't, they weren't that happy about it. Hey, Princeton and Georgetown. I'll tell you what, I'm supposed to go home for the weekend. If Princeton can beat Georgetown, I am going to hitchhike to Providence. I am going to change into the Princeton cheerleading uniform. I'm going to lead all the cheers. Let's go tigers, Let's go Tigers. It will never happen. They were Pretty intimidating. [ MUSIC ] When you see it and feel it for yourself that people are literally scared of you on the floor. Coach used to always say, they're not scared of you, they're scared of the ghost. And that's the people that came before us and put this program on the map. Georgetown, That's the ballgame, the National Champions. It was definitely more than a basketball team, I mean, I think we were a cultural symbol. Everybody wanted to see the underdog beat the controversial coach. Not just Georgetown, but coach Thompson. They wanted to see that. Then, I think you can take it a little further you know, white against black. You know, people wanted to see that. Not saying that there was some kinda racial tension but, you know, a lot of people thought Coach Thompson was a racist. Which was unfortunate because they didn't get a chance to sit down and just talk with him, find out who he is and what he's all about. I could have given a damn what people thought about Georgetown basketball. You know, it's what I thought about Georgetown basketball that was significant to me. You know, we won ball games and Championships and that's what we tried to do. East region actions continue here from Providence Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island. We are just about set to go. Kit Mueller And once the game started, I remember my, my first shot I took was blocked by Alonzo Mourning. And, you know, was a backdoor cut, and, and he blocked it, and I thought, oh, no. You know, I don't want this to be the you know, what it's gonna be like the, the rest of the game. I knew we were gonna get pressed, and we handled our press pretty good. We were running our stuff, we were getting lay- ups, we get some easy shots, we were making some baskets. We was known as a great defensive team. Full court and half court. But to play it consistently, every possession, at least 30 seconds. That could be a wear on. In the half court set, right away, Princeton was able to run their stuff, and they got few back doors early. The offense was working. That's a goal tend with a bucket for [ INAUDIBLE ]. It all, you know, all of a sudden they're up. You know, they, they had this lead. Well I think it has a lot to do with styles of play. You expected them to get some back doors. You expected them if they got a lead for you to be in a position where you had to chase them, and to be a little bit more cautious. And as it progressed, we realized, we're just playing, we're playing basketball. We're playing Georgetown, but, we were gaining confidence as the game progressed. Absolutely. Your, your Georgetown, you're the number one seed. Your, you're losing to Princeton. What's going on? And you can see, you could kind of tell they were thinking about that. Starting to think about it, sounded psychologically like oh wow, you know, we in for a war. This is why they call it March madness. I guess speechless would be the way to describe this here. The only thing I can say Dick is that the head of the Princeton cheer leading squad just called, wanted to know what sized tutu you wear. I can't believe what I'm looking at John! This is unbelievable! College basketball. Incredible. You know, if this was happening now it would be all over. It would break the system. Viral back then is like you pick up you're buddies, there's like, you know, holy crap, you know, like what's going on? And I mean, and, and then, and it wasn't just Princeton people. People are aware of this at halftime. You're seeing this moment and you just know that like it's, you know, I don't believe this. Heading back out there and, you know, going through warm- ups and there's obviously a buzz in the, in the arena. One of the key things is we come out And we score right away, which is huge, because it gets the crowd right back into it. I thought everything was fine until the first eight calls of the second half went against us. Then I said, oh, somethin's fishy here. They changed their defense I had less opportunities to shoot. We were missing shots. Well, we tried to play to our advantages, see I mean, just as their advantage was pulling it out, tempo and, which they do very well, you know, our advantage was Zo. It was a very simple strategy, Alonzo Mourning at half time was realizing wait a second just give me the ball. He deserved to get every ball every time down the court. So Mourning hits another big foul shot. 50- 49 Princeton down a point. 15 seconds left. I mean and this is like, you know when there's a one point difference you know this is a do or die shot. [ MUSIC ] Scrabis and Mueller Well, that was sort of like sort of a pick and roll, which you have, well we have the pick but we didn't have the roll, Georgetown man to man, They give it to Scrabis, So, I know I was gonna get the ball, I get the ball to the top of the key, and then you, you know, you always want that shot, you know, when your, your backyard or on the, on the playground you don't leave the playground until you make it, but, you don't have, 6'11 future pro's jumping out of the bushes to, to block your shot. Bobby Winston, he gets a scream from Mueller. Comes up, fires, blocked by Mourning! Loose on the floor! Jefferson can't save it. It's out of bounds! He made a, he made a great play. You know, the ball scrambles around after that, it's kinda chaotic. And we get the ball back with one second left. Lap and Mueller fires no, the Hoyas escape. And I mean escape. And advance to the second round in the Eastern regional. Unbelievable. The Princeton TIgers. Every time the game comes up, in Princeton circles, it's an emphatic, yes, he was fouled. [ LAUGH ] Was it a clean block, or was Bobby fouled on the last shot? That, you can argue until you're blue in the face. Tigers, putting on just a fantastic show here tonight. What am I gonna say? Alonzo fouled somebody? No, I didn't think he he fouled anybody. I thought he made a good block. He's very capable. of making a good block. They were a 20 point plus underdog coming in here. You have all this excitement. You have all this anticipation. You have all this transpire. And then, boom, it's over. [ MUSIC ] It was hard. It was, you know. There's a, there's 100 little reasons that you think of. Maybe we coulda done 'em. And then a 100 more, which had been worse. So you take things the way they are, or the way, the way they happen, and that's, that's all. That's all you can do. It was a huge loss for Princeton, huge win for college basketball. The way that game played out, make the world kinda say, oh, maybe we shouldn't get rid of Of the quote unquote little guys because they can play, too. That's what makes this, this event special giving smaller schools the opportunity to do something. People saw how big an audience it got, how magical and fun it is at the 16- 0 to one, it's like, we've, we can't lock any of these Cinderellas out. That would be ridiculous. The beauty of the NCAA tournament is, is that it's not like the pros, it's not a series, it's on, on any given night, the starts align themselves properly, a 16 can give a 1 a game, a 15 can beat a 2. 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