President Obama sees three-peat for UConn
His bracket has Stanford and Cal reaching Sweet 16
President Barack Obama picked Connecticut to win a third straight women’s basketball championship in the NCAA tournament.
Obama projected that both Stanford and Cal will reach the Sweet 16, but no further.
The president made a surprising choice by going with his niece’s team, Princeton, to reach the Final Four.
Obama acknowledged some bias toward the eighth-seeded Tigers during an interview broadcast Thursday on ESPN. Leslie Robinson, whose aunt is Michelle Obama, is a reserve for Princeton.
The president has South Carolina and Notre Dame as the other two Final Four participants, with the Irish making the championship game for a second straight season. Obama has chosen the women’s winner two of the past three seasons, including UConn last year.
Oregon State: The Beavers went from the high of winning the Pac-12 regularseason title for the first time ever to the low of getting ousted quickly fromthe conference tournament. Now coach Scott Rueck hopes his team has learned from the roller coaster.
The Beavers had their perfect home record broken in the final week of the regular season with a loss to Stanford.
Then, after an openinground bye for the confer- ence tournament, Oregon State was defeated 68-65 by Colorado.
The third-seeded Beavers (26-4) still had enough on their resume to host an NCAA tournament subregional starting Friday in Corvallis, opening against South Dakota State.
“Anytime you lose, you certainly need to look at things, no question,” he said “You have a choice of making it a positive or a negative. This group has always turned those into a positive. That’s just obvious life lessons. So we’ve got to look at this and understand, hey, postseason basketball. These guys are fighting for their lives.”
Savannah State: The Lady Tigers’ Ezinne Kalu was excited to see her team’s name in the NCAA tournament for the first time, and then some of her teammates had an “Oh no” moment when they saw their opponent.
The 16th-seeded Lady Tigers (21-10) play their first-ever tournament game Friday against No. 1 seed South Carolina (30-2) in the same building where the Gamecocks pounded them 111-49 on Dec. 14.
“You also had a handful of us who thought we have a second chance at this, we have a second chance to compete at a high level and compete with a great team,” Kalu said.
They have a tough challenge ahead of them. There’s only been one No. 16 upset of No. 1, back in 1998 when Harvard defeated Stanford 71-67. South Carolina also has won 32 straight at home.
Minnesota: The eighthseeded Gophers believe their best player will be helping against ninthseeded DePaul even though she won’t be on the floor. Rachel Banham, the Big Ten preseason player of the year, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee in December, a devastating loss that could have sent the Gophers’ season into a tailspin. Instead, it became a rallying point as Minnesota (23-9) earned its first tournament berth since 2009.
“It challenged us at every turn to be creative,” first-year Minnesota coach Marlene Stollings said.
Iowa: Despite reaching the NCAA tournament 12 times in 15 seasons under Lisa Bluder, the Hawkeyes have never advanced to the regional semifinals. This year Iowa (24-7) is seeded third and will serve as the host school — in a gym it hasn’t lost in all season. The Hawkeyes face American (24- 8) on Friday. Miami (19-12) and Washington (23-9) are also in the regional.
Familiar faces: Kim Mulkey and Brooke Stoehr were both NCAA Final Four point guards at Louisiana Tech. Friday, they will coach against each other when Mulkey’s Baylor team plays Northwestern State and Stoehr.
“I guess I don’t even think about her having played for me. You’re so focused on your job,” said Mulkey, an associate coach at Louisiana Tech when she recruited Stoehr. “Hug ’em in the hallway, and say good to see you, how’s the family doing, how are the kids doing. But it’s just a job, and I don’t think of it any other way.”