It’s best to avoid really big issues

A powder keg of a question was put to the remaining contenders for the biggest dance of them all: the presidential Inaugural Ball. The Final Three were asked whom they were picking to win the NCAA tournament, Bloomberg reported.

Barack Obama was the only one to take a decisive stand, selecting North Carolina.

Hillary Clinton said she would consult her “basketball advisor, my husband” (and what else does Bill have to do these days?). A spokesman for Bill Clinton said, “We’re going to pass.” (There are still primaries in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina to consider.)

John McCain was said to be working on his picks Wednesday night. McCain is running his own tournament pool for staffers, but because of his opposition to gambling on college sports, the winner will get a “McCain 2008 fleece.”

Yeah, like that’s the only time a person will get fleeced in a tournament pool this year.

Trivia time

What three schools in this year’s NCAA tournament can boast about being the place where presidents earned undergraduate degrees?

The dream team

Obama seems to have the edge in basketball star power. His staff includes Reggie Love, a member of Duke’s 2001 national title team. He also has endorsements from Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who helped Boston University make the 1997 tournament, Portland Trail Blazers center Greg Oden and Houston Rockets forward Shane Battier.

Clinton has an endorsement and $4,600 donation from Magic Johnson, though in a classic sleight-of-hand by Magic, he has also given Obama $2,300.

McCain, meanwhile, seems a little short on basketball connections, though Bob Cousy has yet to be heard from.

Glum alums

The three candidates do not have to worry about offending the schools where they earned undergraduate degrees.

Obama went to Columbia, which last made the tournament in 1968. McCain went to Navy, which last made the tournament in 1998.

Clinton went to all-women Wellesley College, which, like UC Irvine, has never been in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Bribes work better

Concerns of how the Texas basketball team will be treated in its first-round game in Little Rock, Ark. -- normally hostile territory for the Longhorns -- had Coach Rick Barnes waving the checkbook this week.

“We’re scheduled to come play Arkansas next year, and if the fans don’t treat us well, we’re not going to come,” Barnes said in a teleconference call this week. “You can put that out there. I’m serious. We’ve got enough money here we can buy our way out of it. So, they’d better be good to us.”

Yeah, hit ‘em with your wallet. That’ll grease the skids.

Collision course

Meanwhile, on the road to see who’s the 66th best team in the land . . .

Florida and Ohio State moved a step closer this week to an NIT final matchup of last season’s NCAA title game, which on those campuses might rank a bit below what Urban Meyer (Florida football coach) had for lunch and what size shoe Terrelle Pryor (Buckeyes’ quarterback recruit) wears.

Trivia answer

Georgetown (Bill Clinton), Stanford (Herbert Hoover) and North Carolina (James Polk). And, no, Polk was not a classmate of Dean Smith.

And finally

With North Carolina guaranteed to stay in the state until the Final Four, students were asked how to tell if North Carolinians are more excited than usual?

“Probably just more burning of things, more people climbing of street poles,” junior Kelsey McCorkle told the Chicago Tribune.

Ah, nothing says higher education like a burning couch and drunken pole sitting.

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chris.foster@latimes.com