President Obama has a horrible endorsement record since taking the White House. He backed Jon Corzine in the New Jersey governor’s race last year and Corzine lost. He championed Creigh Deeds, the Democrat candidate in Virginia’s race for governor and he lost too. Last week Scott Brown pulled a massive upset over Martha Coakley to be Massachusetts’s next US Senator. Coakley was visited in the final hours of campaigning by the big guy himself, President Obama, for a rally and some TV time. She lost.

All these endorsements by the new president have been awful luck for those he has supported, but until now, they’ve stayed in the realm of politics. Until last night.

We’re reaching the fever pitch of the college basketball season, just a little more than a month away from March Madness and the battle for number one has been fierce. There was the Kansas Jayhawks, then the Texas Longhorns, and this week the Kentucky Wildcats. The Cats have been on a roll. When they assumed the number one ranking on Monday, they were the only undefeated team left standing. Then they got the backing of Barack Obama. I know you know where this is going.

Sitting at a long table in the Colonial Life Arena’s media room, a phone in front of Coach John Calipari rang and a voice came on the line saying they were calling for President Obama. After the initial shock, the coach and players listened to the basketball fan in chief thank them for their efforts to raise money for Haiti relief efforts, then moved on to some basketball chit chat.

At one point Obama said, “Man, I am honored to speak to the No. 1 team in the country.”

Not for long.

Later that evening, the number one Wildcats became another victim of the Obama curse, falling to South Carolina 68 – 62 behind the inspired play of the Game Cock’s Devan “Scott Brown” Downey. The Wildcats are no longer unbeaten and may not be number one again for next week’s poll. If you listen closely, you can almost here the groaning all the way back in Lexington, Kentucky, where someone is surely saying, “Thanks for nothing Obama.”

Now, I wonder who he’s picking for the Super Bowl…