Charles Barkley has had enough of former president Barack Obama.
At least when it comes to the NCAA tournament and Obama’s annual tradition of filling out brackets for the men’s and women’s tourneys. Barkley skewered the former president on Wednesday night’s March Madness preview edition of his show King Charles.
“He just cheated off everybody else in America,” Barkley said of Obama’s picks, which featured heavy favorites UConn and South Carolina winning the men’s and women’s sides, respectively.
As with Shannon Sharpe this week, it’s easy for anyone to fall into the trap of picking the favorites. After all, they are the theoretically better teams. But March is all about upsets and Cinderellas, and there may be no point at all in publishing your bracket if there’s nothing unique about it.
“He just went chalk,” Barkley said of the 44th president. “He picked South Carolina because everybody else in the world picked South Carolina.”
On Thursday, Barkley joined CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins to evaluate her bracket as well. While Collins had Barkley’s alma mater Auburn losing in the Round of 32 and also picked UConn as champion, Barkley liked Collins’ picks.
Charles Barkley weighs in on my March Madness bracket: “Actually, you did pretty good. Actually.” (I don't know why he's surprised!) pic.twitter.com/WmPZDEBVtn
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 21, 2024
Barkley also gave his rules for March when it comes to making your picks.
“I only fill out one. All those other fools be filling out like five,” Barkley said on King Charles. “That’s one of the 10 commandments: you only get one bracket. One bracket, fools.”
So while Barkley has the benefit of a college basketball crash course courtesy of his employer TNT Sports, not everyone else does. Collins is simply an Alabama homer, while Obama has always fancied himself an amateur sports analyst.
But Barkley had no mercy in his grading system in advance of March Madness, taking down a colleague and a beloved politician.
[CNN]
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.