Good on Marquette for picking a specific eagle and not having it be the Bald Eagle. Bald eagles are great and all, but I would have taken it as a blatant attempt to win the Murphspot Mascot Bracket through an appeal to patriotism. I'm sure Golden Eagles are as majestic as you get without fashioning a teensy crown and scepter and somehow convincing a bird to carry it. Wikipedia claims they eat not only rabbits and squirrels, but mountain goats(!) and deer (!!). I can't imagine John Darnielle is too pleased with this. But in the end, Xavier's mascot is defined by the concept that he's armed and though my shooting things out of the sky experience is terribly limited, I can't imagine that this one's going to end in the eagle's favor.
Xavier advances.
#3 Syracuse Orange vs. #14 Indiana Sycamores
Seriously?
Seriously?
Actually, reading into it, the mascot situation at Indiana State is more interesting than I would have thought at first glance. They were evidently the "Fighting Teachers" early in the school's history, which would be actually politically relevant if Indiana State were in Wisconsin. The students then voted to change it to "Sycamores", possibly as a joke. They kept using the tree as a mascot for a while, then changed it to Chief Quabachi and his Princess, both because a tree isn't ferocious (and thus would not win the Murphspot Mascot Bracket) and because "Quabachi" is potentially worth 102 points in Scrabble (not counting 50 points if it's played as a bingo). They stopped using Chief Quabachi and Princess (I can't find a name for her) in 1989, then chose "Sycamore Sam" who appears to be a blue fox, but Wikipedia calls him a "blue furry woodland creature". So I don't know. Syracuse is just named after a color and uses an anthropomophic orange, which would either be eaten by the "woodland creature" or ignored by the tree until it rotted. Either way, Indiana State advances.
#7 Washington Huskies vs. #10 Georgia Bulldogs
Given that dog fighting is a real thing, I'm feeling some trepidation about how to figure this one out, so I'll just temporarily dispense with the "which mascot would kill the other" and focus on their attributes. Huskies tend to be associated with cold climates (+1 for toughness, but -1 for reminding me that I'm in Chicago and that spring will evidently never come), but they're good if your antitoxin needs to get to Nome, and they have that heterochromia thing. Bulldogs are solidly built, but tend to suffer from hip dysplasia and will not drag a guy in a sled across barren stretches of Alaska.
Washington advances.
#2 North Carolina Tar Heels vs. #15 Long Island Blackbirds
I'm not sure if it's a positive thing or a negative if your team name makes me think of Paul McCartney. I think that's not good. If you want to progress in the mascot bracket, you should inspire fear. Well, fear that you could hurt me, not fear that you'll make me listen to the incomprehensible parts of the White Album and then pick through my trash.
Still, if "Tar Heel" simply means "North Carolinian", then I'm not sure how this is going to be much of a fight. I'm not sure how many people I know from North Carolina, but I'm pretty sure they'd be able to take care of a small bird, no matter how much a giant anthropomorphic representation is imploring them to bring it.
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