Believe it or not, the NCAA college basketball tournament is still going on! In fact, it's a very exciting tournament that is currently taking place! Upsets (teams that are seeded lower and less favored to win, are defeating teams that are higher seeded and more favored to win!) are happening left and right! Here's how crazy it is: Of the almost 6 million brackets filled out on ESPN, only TWO of them correctly predicted the Final Four (the four teams that make it to the semifinals) correctly. That is a very low percentage! I'm not sure if you'll believe this, but none of the intrepid Awl sports fans were [...]

Let’s start with this sobering but necessary caveat: Barack Obama is perfectly capable of applying his attention on the country’s economic problems and the world’s massively scary issues right now and taking 20 minutes to fill out an NCAA bracket.

With that out of the way, let’s parse Obama’s bracket—published earlier today on ESPN.com—with all of the attention of a 24/7 political pundit parsing the latest daily message from the White House. Forget Politico’s “Win the morning.” Let’s “Win the March Madness.”

Wow! Now I don't want to speak for everyone here, but I think we can safely say that the first two rounds of this tournament (I'm ignoring the nonsensical practice of calling the play-in games the first round. Is anyone who's not being paid by the NCAA actually calling it this?) have been pretty crazy! Equally exciting: the The Official 2011 Awl March Madness Bracket Tournament Challenge Sponsored By The Awl! Let's go through some of the highlights.

That's right, folks, it's that time again! The ides of March are upon us, and it's TIME TO GO MAD! Don't have any idea what I'm talking about? Well, that makes sense as I've currently not given you much, if any, context with which to understand what I'm saying. Wait, but you know what, readers of The Awl are so sports savvy*, I'm sure you guys caught my "mad March" reference up there as an allusion to our (now) annual tradition: The Official 2011 Awl March Madness Bracket Tournament Challenge Sponsored By The Awl!

If you are planning to participate in The Official 2011 Awl March Madness Bracket Tournament Challenge Sponsored By The Awl but are still tinkering around with your bracket, fair warning: The deadline is noon eastern today. Hurry it up.