NCAA Tournament Bracket: President Obama Picks Indiana As Winner

NCAA Tournament Bracket President Obama Picks Indiana As WinnerAs has become tradition, President Obama selected his bracket in front of ESPN’s cameras, accompanied by college basketball analyst Andy Katz.

‘Ohio State defeating Wisconsin’

In the Midwest region, the Louisville pick makes sense. However, President Obama has them beating Duke in the Elite Eight. For the most part, the President sticks with chalk in the Midwest. His only notable “upset” is Cincinnati defeating Creighton in the round of 64.

In the West, President Obama has Ohio State defeating Wisconsin to advance to the Final Four. The President isn’t so quick to dismiss Gonzaga, advancing them to the Sweet 16. But he is quick to dismiss Kansas State, already predicting the winner of the Boise State versus La Salle play-in game will beat the Wildcats in the round of 64. He also likes Belmont over Arizona, a popular upset pick and one I’m also projecting.


‘Indiana winning the national title’

In the South, the President is projecting Florida to beat Michigan to advance to the Final Four. President Obama has two upset picks in the round of 64 on the bottom portion of the bracket, rolling with Minnesota over UCLA—I’m with you, Mr. President—and Oklahoma over San Diego State.

Finally, we go to the East region, where the President has Indiana defeating Miami to reach the Final Four. It’s hard to argue with either selection.  However, you could make the argument that Miami deserved to be a No. 1 seed. In fact, the Hurricanes are the first ACC team ever to win the regular-season title and conference tournament and not earn a No. 1 seed.

In the Final Four, President Obama sees Indiana defeating Florida, Louisville defeating Ohio State and Indiana winning the national title.

Do you think President Obama’s prediction of the NCAA tournament will come true? Which team are you rooting for?

Source: Timothy Rapp, Bleacher Report

Image: Gamedayr

And The Happiest States In The U.S. Are…

And The Happiest States In The U.S. Are...If you’re sick of cheerful, happy people, it might be wise to avoid Hawaii or Napa, California. They were found to be the United States’ happiest state and city, respectively, in a recent study of geotagged tweets.

‘Fondness for profanity’

Researchers at the University of Vermont sifted through more than 10 million geotagged tweets from 2011 to map out the moods of Americans in urban areas. They ranked the locations based on frequency of positive and negative words using the Mechanical Turk Language Assessment word list.

Maine, Nevada, Utah and Vermont round-out the top five happiest states list, following rainbow and beach-filled Hawaii. Louisiana was found to be the saddest state, followed by Mississippi, Maryland, Michigan and Delaware. One reason for Louisiana’s low cheeriness ranking (they must not have measured during Mardi Gras) is its inhabitants’ fondness for profanity.

‘Coastal areas were more chipper’

The study, which was broken down by The Atlantic, also looked at the results for 373 urban areas to rank the happiest and least-happy cities. Vacation destination Napa, California, was determined to be one of the happiest cities along with Longmont, Colorado; San Clemente, California; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Santa Cruz, California.

The five most bummed-out cities according to average word choices were Beaumont, Texas; Albany, Georgia; Texas City, Texas; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Monroe, Louisiana. Again, researchers found liberal use of swear words to be a key factor in a city’s overall happiness score. Coastal areas were more chipper than landlocked areas, and the cities with a higher density of tweets tended to be less happy.

The research shows that social networks have a lot of promise for these types of surveys, and also that there are still some major limitations. Researchers point out that only 15% of online adults are using Twitter, and those users don’t accurately represent the demographics of the United States.

Do you agree with the results of this study? Tell us what makes you happy and what makes you sad.

Source: Heather Kelly, CNN

Image: The Telegraph