President Joe Biden won’t be winning the perfect March Madness bracket challenge or likely winning any NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament pools.
Here’s a look at how Biden’s bracket is doing through the first weekend of games and heading into the Sweet 16 games.
What Happened: Biden continued a tradition started by former President Barack Obama that saw the U.S. presidents make their selections for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
Biden did not make a bracket for last year’s tournament and the 2020 tournament was not played due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former President Donald Trump declined to make brackets and carry on the tradition started by Obama.
Biden picked his alma mater the University of Delaware to win the entire tournament as a No. 15 seed, something that has never been accomplished. The bracket was signed by Biden with the words “Keep the faith” and shared on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR).
Biden also picked the No.13 seeded University of Delaware women’s team to win the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
“I’m proud of all the athletes competing in this year’s NCAA tournament. But at the end of the day, I’m a @UDelaware guy. Go Blue Hens!” Biden tweeted.
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Grading Biden’s Bracket: Biden’s chance at a perfect bracket ended relatively quick on Thursday, March 17 with the No. 9 seeded Memphis Tigers winning the third game of the tournament and giving Biden his first loss.
Biden went on to post a 21-12 record in the first-round games. The second round had Biden post a 9-7 record and correctly get nine of the 16 teams remaining.
Through the first two rounds of the tournament, Biden would have 390 points on the Tournament Challenge by ESPN, a unit of Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS). This puts Biden in the 61.7 percentile, beating the majority of brackets submitted on the Tournament Challenge.
The rest of the tournament could prove troublesome for Biden with the Delaware Blue Hens losing to Villanova 80-60 in the first round in a game seen on CBS, a unit of Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA)(NASDAQ:PARAA).
Biden also lost No. 2 seed Kentucky from the Final Four. The team was a popular pick by the public with 13% of brackets on the ESPN Tournament Challenge having the Wildcats in the Final Four, making it the fourth most popular team to advance that far in the tournament.
Biden’s other two Final Four selections of Gonzaga and Wisconsin remain alive in the tournament and were selected by 41.7% and 3.4%, respectively, of contestants on the ESPN Tournament Challenge.
Going forward, the best Biden’s bracket can do is get five of the eight teams in the Elite 8, two Final Four teams and one team in the finals.
The leaderboard on the ESPN Tournament Challenge shows seven people with 570 points and 13 with 560 points to lead the way.
By mid-Friday in the first round, no perfect brackets remained, ending the impossible 1 in 9.2 quintillion odds of accomplishing the feat.
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr Creative Commons
