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Charles Barkley Hilariously Ridicules Barack Obama for Cheating Over March Madness Bracket

Published 03/21/2024, 12:33 AM EDT

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Charles Barkley has been a big admirer of college basketball for several decades now. With March Madness heating up, the Philadelphia 76ers icon and his co-host Gayle King decided to analyze the playoff bracket on their CNN show, King Charles. Interestingly, they chose to discuss former American President Barack Obama’s predictions for the NCAA tournament this year, and Barkley hilariously criticized it with no filter.

Obama had shared a tweet two days back, making his picks for the bracket this year. Starting from the First Four round, the ex-president had chosen the Howard Bisons to win against Wagner, and that caught Barkley’s attention. The 1993 MVP shared, “Well, he picked Howard. Wrong!” Further, Barkley also criticized Obama’s pick for Virginia. 

Seeing that the former President had picked the UConn Huskies to win it all, the NBA icon accused Obama of copying others’ brackets. He believes it is one of the most common picks. The 76ers legend said, “He went with the traditional pick. Everybody’s picking UConn…So he just copied it out of somebody else’s paper.” 

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Barkley’s hilarious accusation of Obama cheating made Gayle King laugh. The only thing that Barkley agreed with was, “He[Obama] got Auburn winning two games, I’m good with that.” But the accusations were not over, yet. Barkley moved on to the women’s bracket in which he pin-pointed Obama’s pick for the national championship.

“See, he picks up South Carolina because everybody in the world picks South Carolina.” King, however, was having none of it. “Coz they’re good, Charles, coz they’re good,” she said while taking Dawn Staley’s name. While he slammed Obama for his picks, he had some interesting choices of his own.

Who did Charles Barkley choose to win the title in both men’s and women’s basketball? 

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Barkley predicted that the UConn Huskies and Arizona Wildcats will face each other in the Final Four on the men’s side. However, contrary to Obama’s pick for UConn, Barkley believes that the Arizona Wildcats have a better chance of going all the way this year. Barkley shared proudly, “Now Arizona is going to win this thing. He[Obama] just cheated off everybody else in America.” Gayle King, on the other hand, sided with the former President in choosing UConn over Arizona. 

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Coming to the women’s tournament, Barkley had a unique choice. But before that, he had a wish for the Final Four. The 1993 MVP revealed, “The Final Four perfect would be, Iowa, USC, South Carolina, and Stanford. I would love to see Caitlin Clark. She has carried all of college basketball.” Although he believes South Carolina has the best team, he is going with UConn to win the national championship. It’s quite ironic because his ideal Final Four didn’t even have UConn.

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He clarified that he is expecting an “upset”, though. Once again, Gayle King was in denial. Anyhow, getting the playoff bracket right is mission impossible. So all these predictions change from person to person. But who do you think has the best picks? Obama or Barkley? 

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Written by:

Rohan Dharmalingam

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Rohan Dharmalingam is an NBA beat writer at EssentiallySports, who extensively covers the Lakers. Be it a multimillion dollar deal breaking or a classic throwback, Rohan has covered the many themes and formats. Most notably, his coverage received a shoutout from the Purple & Gold icon Shaquille O'Neal and the rap legend 50 Cent, on Instagram.
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Edited by:

Pragya Vashisth