Oakland Ruins Barack Obama's March Madness Bracket, Helps Sportsbooks With Huge Upset Of Kentucky

They don't call it March calmness. The annual tradition of March Madness sees teams compete in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

On the opening night of the first round of games, one Cinderella team punched its ticket to the second round and sent one of the most well-known college basketball programs of all time packing.

What Happened: The University of Kentucky entered the 2024 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament as a 3-seed and a favorite by many to advance above their seeding, with a potential trip to the Final Four.

Kentucky lost to 14-seed Oakland University 80-76 Thursday night. The game was the biggest upset based on seeding of the first day of games.

Oakland's Jack Gohlke hit 10 3-pointers in the game, tying him for second place for the most made in a tournament game.

With the win by Oakland, the number of perfect brackets that remained in challenges shrank. Some brackets also took a hit losing one of their Final Four teams or in some cases a finalist.

Former President Barack Obama selected Kentucky to reach the Final Four and to reach the championship game, losing to his top pick of Connecticut.

With the loss by Kentucky, Obama's bracket will likely fall in standings and rank among the bottom half by the end of the tournament and all 63 games are completed.

While the loss by Kentucky was bad for Obama, the Oakland win could prove to be beneficial to sportsbooks.

One sportsbook that could benefit is BetMGM, a joint venture from Entain and MGM Resorts International MGM.

"They're BetMGM's biggest liability on the national outright. It's nonstop action on Kentucky," BetMGM's Seamus McGee previously said of Kentucky, as shared by Action Network.

Sports betting reporter Ben Fawkes said that Kentucky was the betting favorite Thursday, getting 79% of bets at DraftKings Inc DKNG, 77% of bets at Fanatics, 74% of bets at Rush Street Interactive RSI owned BetRivers and 66% of bets at BetMGM.

Action Network said 72% of betting tickets and 81% of the money for the game was on Kentucky covering the 13.5-point spread.

Only 10% of tickets were on the Oakland moneyline at +700 according to Action Network. Fawkes reported that one bettor placed several wagers on Oakland with BetRivers, winning six-figures.

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What's Next: Whether they win another game or not, Oakland and Gohlke will be remembered for many years. There's also Oakland head coach Greg Kampe, who has been the coach at Oakland since 1984, marking one of the lonest tenures at one school.

Kampe gets paid $329,609 for this season, compared to $8.54 million for Kentucky head coach John Calipari. Kampe also makes less than at least one Kentucky assistant coach, according to the Detroit Free Press.

Anyone who bet on Oakland to win the game enjoyed a huge profit, with Oakland a 13.5-point underdog and having odds of +700 to win the game. This means a $100 bet paid a profit of $700 for anyone backing Oakland.

The 14-seed Oakland will now face off against 11-seed North Carolina State at 7:10 p.m. ET Saturday.

North Carolina State also pulled a first-round upset, beating 6-seed Texas Tech.

The current odds at DraftKings show North Carolina State favored by 6 points. A bet on Oakland to win pays out at odds of +210 if they can once again pull off the upset and reach the Sweet Sixteen.

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