President Obama turns to important business and picks Murray State to upset Vanderbilt in NCAA tourney

Apparently Doug Gottlieb and Jay Bilas are on Barack Obama's basketball cabinet because the president picked the Racers to pull the upset.

Here's how Kevin Stallings responded when asked about it: "Well, I don't know. We actually kinda feel like the underdog, because you have all of the experts saying that we're going to lose, so out of respect for the position of the president of the United States, I won't comment on his predictions."

Here's how Billy Kennedy, the Racers' coach, responded: "I told our assistant coaches we probably had more guys vote for him, I don't know, I'll leave that alone. He's a basketball fan, he knows what's going on, you know, we're thankful, but I've watched a lot of tape and I see Vanderbilt in a different perspective and they're difficult and they're good but it's always nice when somebody like that in a great position like he is and being a true basketball fan, it's a nice thing and I'll leave it at that, that's about all."

In other words, $1 and getting your team's name penciled in on the president's bracket will get you your choice of items from McDonald's dollar menu. Actually, you'll need some change to pay the tax.

It was a fairly interesting press conference today with Stallings and Kennedy and some of their players.

Stallings made these points:

• Vandy's been getting to the free throw line less often lately because "I think as we near tournament time I think the game is called differently, I think more things are allowed to happen and I think that's consistent with other years as we get near tournament time."

• Murray State's strengths: "They shoot the ball well. They drive it well. They use ball screens well. They offensive rebound well."

• On the two weeks since Murray's last game: When you have that amount of time, you can mess around and do some things, and I know when I was in the Missouri Valley, I found that to be one of the advantages of having that have gone that length of time before you play in the NCAA Tournament, and whether Billy (Kennedy, head coach) has done that remains to be seen, and I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

• He doesn't think Festus, who didn't play high school basketball, will reach his basketball potential until he's 26 or 27 years old.