The Democratic candidates are in our backyard here in North Carolina campaigning for next Tuesday's primary. While Hillary was off doing whatever hobbies Hillary likes to do at 7:15AM, Barack Obama was in Chapel Hill, ballin’ with the Tar Heels:

Obama scored exactly zero points during the scrimmage, but to be fair, the man is 47 and was running with 20-year-olds who were playing in the Final Four a few weeks ago. I’m fairly confident that Barack could still work me on the blacktop. Then again, my game consists of taking horrible shots and hacking anyone near me. Basically, I play prison rules.

There are a couple more photos of the scrimmage after the jump, along with an epic Obama And1-style video.

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Even though I shouldn’t have been, I was surprised to see my favorite streetwear brand making its presence known at yesterday’s announcement by Tyreke Evans, who announced he’ll be attending Memphis next season. Clearly, UNDRCRWN runs Philly.

Sure, pretty much everyone knew Evans, Rivals’ No. 6 player in the nation, would pick Memphis, but his announcement gets bonus points for the shirts his family wore during the announcement.

Dustin Canalin, design and creative director for UNDRCRWN, has all the details on his blog. It’s really amazing; Canalin says they designed, presented, printed and delivered the 50 shirts to the family in a week.

After the jump, find out which hip-hop artist came to Evans’ announcement.

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That’s it Gary Williams, pack it up. There’s no sense in even playing next season, because Maryland’s bubble has burst. Yep, as you can see, the Terps are in the “last four out” for next year’s Final Four Tournament, which Joe Lunardi has already completely sorted out.

As if filing out a bracket -- right down to the regions teams will play in -- 11 and a half months premature isn’t a big enough waste of time, ESPN.com did a “chat” with Lunardi today. Not surprisingly, people are already pissed off about where the “bracketologist” seeded their teams. Although on the bright side, if Syracuse getting robbed by being a seven seed in the most hypothetical of sports hypotheticals is your biggest concern, then you’re probably living a pretty stress-free life. So there’s that.

As for Lundari, has anyone ever made a career out of doing something this niche? (Spencer would like to offer up “reprocessed cattle parts salesman.” Touche.) Lunardi’s entire occupation is centered around make believe men’s college basketball tournament brackets. It really is just a made-up profession. The guy makes bloggers look like James Dean.

(H/T: Steady Burn)

By Brian Powell

Disappointing Games = Disappointing Ratings
One of the best potential sports weekends since football ended is behind us, and I'm slightly disappointed. Gus Johnson put his mark back on the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight, but only one of the games was even relatively exciting and this seemed to really hurt CBS' ratings. This Tournament is in danger of becoming the lowest rated ever, and compared to last year it's not even close.

Ratings through Saturday's game (Sunday's ratings not yet available) were down 11% from last year, and if you consider the amount of money that CBS pays to air the games, they're going to need a huge Final Four. Jim Nantz and Billy Packer are going to be the pair that takes you through the three games next Saturday and Monday and they're not going to help anything. Announcers can't make people turn games on, but they sure can make people turn them off. If either Final Four game becomes a blowout, the lackluster announcing duo might not be able to keep them tuned in.

Also, the "I Am Legend" promos before the Sweet Sixteen were enough. Did you really have to continue them through the Elite Eight, CBS?

Baseball Is Back
If you stayed up to watch the Braves-Nationals game then you deserve a round of applause. The game plodded through about seven offense-free innings, but after a blown save by the Nats, Washington fans were treated to the first walk-off homer in the new park courtesy of third baseman Ryan Zimmerman. The broadcasting "highlight" of the game came when President George W. Bush decided to spend about 30 minutes in the booth with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan.

Miller and Morgan seemed really unprepared as they tried to engage the President in baseball talk and there was a good bit of dead air. At one point Jon Miller asked the Commander in Chief if he'd be interested in broadcasting to which he replied, "They say I got a lot of hot air you know, so maybe I'm well suited for it." Bush was also lucky enough to call the first homerun at Nationals Park:



Quotes of the Weekend:
"The great thing about baseball is that you don't have to be a giant to play it ... as you know." - George W. Bush to Joe Morgan

"Such an exciting game with that pastoral music." - Len Elmore after a Masters promo

"Davidson and Kansas have yet to score a point according to the scoreboard. It's been a slow pace, but not that slow." - Gus Johnson on the scoreboard problems in Detroit

"As Anderson Hunt, Anderson Anderson, Antonio Anderson banks in a three." - Clark Kellogg mixing up his names

"They ran into hot Curry and they got burned." - Len Elmore

Video of the Weekend:
Thank you for a great Tournament Stephen Curry. This shot was just one of many that blew us all away:

By Will Brinson

When you're recognized as "the guy" (here meaning a generic term for MVP, MOP, etc. of a major sporting event) you are required to talk to media members. When you do that, you better believe that you gotta throw props to peeps, homeys, mom, dad, your boy Ray-ray, whatever. If you fail to do this, you have wasted your time in front of the camera.

Derrick Rose, freshman phenom, shows near perfect shout out form following Memphis' win earlier tonight.



Note that he waits until Billy Packer has windbagged out before asking if he can give the shoutout. But then, and this is key, he gives the shoutout anyway without expressed permission. Just simply flawless execution too.

He then makes sure to throw love to his hometown, Englewood (always up to no good!), and he gives love to the fams. He makes it short, sweet and confuses the old men with the microphones enough to get a "That's a good shoutout" quip from Jim Nantz. Again, just superb execution. The only thing that might have topped it would have been a Manny Ramirez style double point combined with mentioning a record label.