Obama plays hoops with troops, works on NCAA bracket

CHARLOTTE (AP) — There always is time for basketball in Barack Obama’s world.

The Democratic presidential candidate played basketball today with soldiers from Fort Bragg in North Carolina before he delivered a speech on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.

And on the short flight from Fayetteville to Charlotte, Obama began working on his NCAA basketball tournament bracket. The campaign staff is competing in a $10 per person pool. When the plane landed, an aide asked whom Obama was supporting. The senator joked that his was a scientific process and he could not be rushed into making his picks.

The tournament gets under way in earnest on Thursday.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)