{"id":43452,"date":"2016-03-16T15:57:01","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T20:57:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=43452"},"modified":"2016-03-23T19:36:01","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T00:36:01","slug":"obama-picks-kansas-to-cut-down-the-nets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2016\/03\/16\/obama-picks-kansas-to-cut-down-the-nets\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: Obama picks Kansas to cut down the nets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Des Moines, IA \u2014 A handful of naysayers\u00a0have chosen not to pick Kansas as the national champion this season, but\u00a0President Barack Obama is not one of them. This morning, Obama filled out his bracket\u00a0and chose Kansas as his national champion.<\/a><\/p>\n

While Kansas coach Bill Self said he was excited about this year\u2019s return to the tournament, he didn\u2019t jump out of his seat at the endorsement from the president when asked about the president\u2019s pick at Kansas\u2019 press conference ahead of its second round matchup against Austin Peay, which tips off Thursday<\/span><\/span> at 3 p.m. central.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t that giddy about it at all,\u201d Self said. \u201cHe\u2019s done this before and then he will blame me for ruining his pool if things don\u2019t work out. I think it\u2019s fine.\u201d\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m fine with anybody picking us or not picking us. I know none of that matters at all, but I know our guys are chomping at the bit to go play.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2010 and 2011, Obama also chose Kansas to win the title.\u00a0\u201cBill Self owes me,\u201d Obama joked to ESPN<\/a> when filling in Kansas. “I’m putting Kansas in here. Coach, I’m just teasing. I’m not putting pressure on you. But I think the Jayhawks in a squeaker get past UNC.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t that giddy about it at all,\u201d Self joked. \u201cHe\u2019s done this before and then he will blame me for ruining his pool if things don\u2019t work out.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kansas will face 16-seeded Austin Peay to begin the tournament, a team that made the tournament on an impressive run which gives some hope to cause a stir in the big dance.\u00a0The Governers at 18-17 are only one game above .500 and made the NCAA tournament by winning their conference tournament, in which they were seeded eighth.<\/p>\n

Peay would have to create quite a stir, too. A 16-seed has never defeated a one-seed in NCAA tournament history.\u00a0\u201cSeeding is big and all, but it gives you the easiest route,\u201d Junior forward Landen Lucas said in the press conference. \u201cBut as soon as the game starts, that all goes away and we\u2019re just playing a team. We will be focused and ready to go, and once the ball is tipped I feel like most of that pressure that might be going into the game, it will go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tune into KJHK\u2019s live broadcast of the game from Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa, at 3:00 p.m. Thursday. You can also\u00a0follow KJHK Sports on Twitter<\/a> for live updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Des Moines, IA \u2014 A handful of naysayers\u00a0have chosen not to pick Kansas as the national champion this season, but\u00a0President Barack Obama is not one of them. This morning, Obama filled out his bracket\u00a0and chose Kansas as his national champion. While Kansas coach Bill Self said he was excited about this year\u2019s return to the tournament, he didn\u2019t jump out of his seat at the endorsement from the president when asked about the president\u2019s pick at Kansas\u2019 press conference ahead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6423,"featured_media":43456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3262,610],"tags":[4527,127,1854,4658,3664,4660,109,87,123,2853,2852,264,706,1402,4659,4657,4656,2513,3570,4503],"class_list":["post-43452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-sports-articles","tag-austin","tag-basketball","tag-big-12-tournament","tag-bracket","tag-college","tag-governors","tag-jayhawks","tag-kansas","tag-ku","tag-madness","tag-march","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-obama","tag-peay","tag-potus","tag-president","tag-preview","tag-rolstad","tag-skylar"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/023.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}