President Barack Obama swung by a South Side field office today and continued his Election Day tradition of playing pick-up basketball in Chicago.

Obama surprised about 30 volunteers this morning at his campaign’s Hyde Park outpost and helped dial a few volunteers in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

“The great thing about these campaigns is after all the TV ads, all the fundraising and all the debates and all the electioneering is it comes down to this,” Obama said during the brief visit, according to a White House pool report. “One day and these incredible folks who are working so hard, making phone calls, make sure the people go out to vote.”

In the afternoon, the president gathered close friends and aides for a customary game of Election Day pick-up basketball at the Hope Athletic Center on the West Side.

Obama’s teammates and former Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias told White House pool reporters that the president’s squad won by about 20 points.

Obama spent the rest of Election Day conducting satellite interviews with swing-state radio stations from the Fairmont hotel in the Loop.

The First Family will eat dinner at their Kenwood home before watching Election Night returns with some relatives, according to the campaign.

— Patrick Svitek