2013 Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Sweet Sixteen - Midwest/West

#9 Missouri Tigers vs. #5 Oklahoma State Cowboys

Truman looks like he wants nothing more than to make others happy.

It's admirable, if not entirely suitable for the ruthless confines of the mascot bracket. He's matched up with Pistol Pete from Oklahoma State this round, who looks like a bowlegged version of Kurt Russell in Tombstone.

I'm pretty pro-mustache within reason, and I'm willing to buy that the bow-legged thing isn't much of an issue because he's primarly going to be doing this from the back of a horse, but there's the small matter of Pistol Pete being terrifying.

I get big-headed mascots; they're easier to see from a distance, they're recognizable and it's a lot easier to tell whether you've got a vigilante mascot in the form of someone who has decided to take cheer and merriment into their own hands and run around dressed up as a Fightin' Astrophysicist or whatever the hell. But if you're going to do a big-headed mascot, it's imperative that he doesn't make grown men cry.

Pistol Pete looks a little like he's melting. I mean, I imagine it gets pretty warm in Stillwater, but if that's the case, you probably shouldn't make your hat out of polyethylene. His eyes are deep set enough that it feels an awful lot like Pistol Pete has a mask on like he's about to either rob a bank or appear in a "Silence of the Lambs" sequel.

I'm also not sure whether his six-shooters are going to be capable of taking down a tiger. I have no idea what sort of firearm one uses to kill a tiger, because I've resigned myself to the idea that if it's me and a tiger, the tiger is going to win.

And so it happens here as well.

Missouri advances.

#6 Memphis Tigers vs. #7 Cincinnati Bearcats

This is turning out to be pretty tiger-heavy. The further this mascot bracket goes on, the more it becomes just things I'm personally pretty sure could kill me.

That's not to disparage binturongs. I'm pretty sure a binturong could kill me. It probably wouldn't even have to try all that hard; I certainly don't have a prehensile tail or a sweet set-up at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Beyond that, the Bearcat mascot (somewhat uninspiringly named "The Bearcat") has a weirdly Dali-esque moustache. So he's probably got the leg up on surrealism. But he's still mostly going to hang out in trees, smell like popcorn and eat plantains.

Memphis, on the other hand, has their mascot leaping over an M-shaped enclosure to apparently strangle his prey.

As I said, this is turning into what frightens me personally. And a tiger who could potentially have the self-restraint to strangle its prey before tearing it to pieces is pretty high up there. In the end, we are all just little red laser pointer dots in the eyes of Pouncer.

Memphis advances.

#16 Southern Jaguars vs. #13 La Salle Explorers

I'm sure there's some sort of endangered species narrative here. LaCumba's no pushover, as he's made it to the Mascot Sweet sixteen, but it probably says something that he's in a cage, which I assume is the result of some bumbling explorer making his way into his habitat, sawing down a bunch of LaCumba's cover and throwing a net over him.

The Explorer is sort of enigmatic, in the sense that I can't seem to find a name for him or a list of the grooming products he uses on that magnificent moustache. He looks like Sam Elliott if he were a Union officer.

An actual Sam Elliott Mascot would win this thing every year. 

Has Sam Elliott ever played a Union officer? Of course he has. 

I don't know about the Explorer leading cavalry against the Jaguars, but the Explorer never just explores. He explores, then reports back and shows up again with a team with bulldozers and plans for a strip mall.

La Salle advances.

#11 Belmont Bruins vs. #15 Iona Gaels

Killian has enjoyed a good run, primarily because I'm trying to keep him happy so that he doesn't show up, smiling and silent, in the alleyway behind my apartment building when I'm going to take the garbage out.

He's got a look on his face that suggests he liked A Clockwork Orange a little too intensely, and that's largely why he's here. But I'm not really sure whether a being named "Bruiser the Bruin" is going to be intimidated. Killian's got a rough wooden walking stick/shillelagh, but if you try to hit a bear with a piece of wood, it's probably not going to end well for you.

It turns out things are pretty good if you're a Bruin. You've got the advantage of being a 1500 pound killing machine, you get to hibernate for months on end if you feel like it and, if you are very, very patient, Jaromir Jagr will show up to help you out.

The man has now played for a full 20% of the NHL. 

As much as I've got a visceral reaction against the words "Jagr" and "Bruin" appearing in the same post, some things have to be set aside for the sake of the Mascot Bracket.

Belmont advances.

2013 Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Midwest - Round One, Part One

#1 Louisville Cardinals vs. #16 Liberty Flames

I went back and forth on this more than is warranted by a goofy mascot tournament. On one hand, if this is a straight-up bird battle, Liberty seems to have the edge; they've got a bird-of-prey as their mascot, whereas Louisville has a seed-eating songbird whose defining characteristic is not being able to hide well unless it's autumn or it has selected the CNA Center as the field of battle.Rams 

On the other hand, it bugs me when teams have a nickname that doesn't at all correspond to their mascot. I'm sort of fine with it when the name is something abstract, but if the UIC Flames can have a dragon who is also named Sparky, I feel Liberty could have put some more effort into this. 

Sparky D. Dragon is not relevant to this bracket, as UIC isn't in the tournament, but he's a dragon wearing sneakers. He stays.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Bird has some manner of mutation wherein he's been granted teeth and a frightening musculature and if you're ever in a car wreck caused by low blood sugar, he will pull you from the wreckage and comfort you. Actually, that alone is enough to sway it, at least for this round.

Louisville advances.

#8 Colorado State Rams vs #9 Missouri Tigers

Listen, I don't want to impugn the reputation of the noble bighorn sheep. I'm sure they're wonderful creatures who I wouldn't want to run into in a dark alley.

Mostly because I would start to have to question what life choices I'd made that had sent me down an alley with livestock. But maybe there's some sort of farm show I'm near and I'm within minutes of getting some fried cheese curds. That'd be fine.

I might stop the mascot bracket prematurely to just go sit at the Wisconsin State Fair grounds and wait.

In any case, the fact of the matter is that however effective CAM the Ram would be at fighting other rams, Mizzou's got a tiger. A tiger will kill a ram, eventually, regardless of the surrounding circumstances.

Missouri advances.

#5 Oklahoma State Cowboys vs. #12 Oregon Ducks

Ducks are fun. A duck once flew at my head, and it was startling. Frightening, though? I'm not sure I'd be able to get behind the idea that ducks are frightening.

Particularly not if the duck is wearing a jaunty beanie.

To be fair, if this were a matchup between the Duck and the Houston Cougars, I'd have actual precedent to run with as that has already happened.

But it's not. This is a battle between the Duck and the empty-eyed, shellac-faced Pistol Pete, whose hat appears to be a melted traffic cone.

I don't think they let you call yourself a cowboy if you can't successfully fight a duck. I'm pretty sure whatever cowboy credentials the Federal Cowboy Agency grants you are revoked.

Oklahoma State advances.

#4 St. Louis Billikens vs. #13 New Mexico State Aggies

Damn it, Billiken, I had just recovered.

I get it. Sort of. The Billiken is based on a doll designed by a Missouri art teacher in the early 1900s and it's supposed to be a good luck totem and may or may not have resembled a football coach at SLU. So that's one thing.

Of course, its foam-rubber mascot form is full of life and happiness and is some sort of vampire bat thing which is in your closet right now (that last bit is best read if you've turned off all of the lights and are reading this alone while a squeaky windvane is just outside your window.)

The Aggies nickname is pretty indistinguishable from the other aggies, but the mascot's got a Mustache of Justice and a Righteoulsly-Oversized-Belt-Buckle of Fury.

I'm going to hope that whatever precious metal you need to stop a Billiken is castable into something that'll fire from those revolvers because someone stop it it's coming for me please send help.

New Mexico State advances.

2013 Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Play In Round

#16 North Carolina A&T Aggies vs. #16 Liberty Flames

I'm not sure what the bulldog is doing here. I'm assuming the intended imagery is that he's leaping at you, but I don't know how many bulldogs attack by lunging with their front paws. It's possible the back half of the image involves the remains of Durin's Bridge and an either winged or wingless Balrog depending on which side of that argument you come down on falling to the depths below while the Noble Bulldog tells Frodo et al. run to elsewhere in Greensboro. The Liberty Flames on the other hand, have a nickname that sounds like what William Tecumseh Sherman would have called his particular brand of burning everything in sight down if he'd been trying to be message-conscious. Their mascot is an eagle named Sparky, which is precious. Based on the most recent reboots of Oregon Trail, I'm thinking an eagle could probably carry away a dog. Even if that dog has a spiked collar. 

Liberty University advances. And that's a sentence I'd never thought I'd type.

#11 Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders vs. #11 St. Mary's Gaels

As discussed previously, the Saint Mary's Gaels mascot is an apparently inflatable knight named Gael Force One. I'm going to assume this is some sort of commentary on the helium crisis. 

Gael Force One is non-renewable and could be lost to us forever if he escapes the atmosphere.

For the purposes of the bracket, I'll assume that his Mylar balloon qualities are a red herring and that he is, in fact, some manner of knight. He's going up against an improbably blue horse named Lightning. That seems tame enough, but their original mascot was Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Having your mascot be the founder of the Klan finally was realized to be a bad idea in the 70's, and they eventually settled on Forrest's horse as a replacement. Even extricating all of the politics, I'm going to have to say a knight could take down a horse if only because if horses could organize and kill knights, they'd have done that by now.

St. Mary's advances.

#16 LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds vs. #16 James Madison Dukes

Ok. So, I'm starting to get bulldogs as a mascot; they're presumably tenacious and angry and have fun jowls that work well in the cartoony style of mascot drawing. And I get that studded collars are a thing that's usually going to accompany the cartoon bulldog mascot. But what is going on here? I'll give Duke Dog the benefit of the doubt and assume that's the appropriate attire for him in the Duchy of Harrisonburg, Virginia, but it's still going to throw me off. 

The blackbird has the Beatles (well, Paul, anyway) and apparently was sacred in Classical Greek folklore, but they're also at risk of being baked in a pie and their main predator is the domestic cat, which doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. I've got a cat. I've seen the cat hunt and kill feathered cat dancers and it's pretty ferocious, but if the blackbird can't stand up to that, it's got no chance against nobility. 

James Madison advances.

#13 Boise State Broncos vs. #13 La Salle Explorers

So there's that. 

On the other hand, we've got a battle between another blue horse and a man with a feather in his hat, a Van Dyke and a telescope. At the very least, the Explorer is going to have some advanced warning of the oncoming Bronco. Presumably he's got some surveying gear which is probably pretty pointy. Buster Bronco, on the other hand, has disturbingly human eyes.

No, it's fine. I was done with REM-sleep for the rest of my life anyway.

Broncos are feral horses, and just so that I can stop looking deep into the soul of Buster there, I'm going to assume that somewhere in the training to explore there's some manner of training on "how to tame a horse." I mean, hell, it took five or so minutes in Red Dead Redemption, and that's pretty much reality, right? Right.

La Salle advances.

Fifth Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket: Final Four and Championship

#10 Xavier Musketeers vs. #10 Virginia Cavaliers

Oh damn,  you guys. Not only do we finally have two human mascots going up against one another, and not only are they both at least presumed to have some sort of elite military training, but they both represent very specific factions serving close to their king at the same point in history. Roughly!

The Musketeers of the Guard (Mousquetaires de la garde!) were formed under Louis XIII in 1622 and spent most of their time protecting nobles, shooting things (nominally in the name of protecting nobles, but I’m sure that there was a 17^th century French equivalent of canned goods on a fence at some point) and waiting around for Alexandre Dumas to be born so that their story could eventually be romanticized, and then summarized by Wishbone.

Caution: If you actually ask Wishbone “What’s the story?”, he will cut you.

The Cavaliers, on the other hand were the loyalist component of the English Civil War, starting in 1642 and hung around through Oliver Cromwell’s rule and the Restoration of the Monarchy. They both had their own military problems to be concerned with (the Musketeers with trying to make sure the Huguenots didn’t kill the king; the Cavaliers fighting a civil war), so it’s difficult to say how they’d have done actually fighting each other. The Musketeers lose on numbers, but win on fancy hats and keeping kings alive (Louis XIII died of tuberculosis, and Louis XIV was a king for longer than anyone’s ever been a king in Europe). The Cavaliers had that period where the kings they supported were executed, but did mount a come-from-behind victory in that the Monarchy did show back up again.

I’d say this comes down to overwhelming force against a smaller, though better trained opponent, but honestly I keep reading “Musketeer” as “Mouseketeer” and I’m not going to make it to the end of this post if that keeps happening. So overwhelming force takes it.

Virginia advances.

#13 Montana grizzlies vs. #15 Detroit Titans

The Grizzlies have gotten here mostly by virtue of being 700 pounds and having razor sharp claws and murder in their hearts, along with a little help from the fact that Monte the Grizzly in particular rides a motorcycle and wears a bandana and is probably eventually going to be the subject of a critically well-received drama on FX. There’s a problem that comes up when your main advantage is size, though, and that’s when your opponent is something that serves as the base of synonyms for “really, really big”. 

 Oh dear.

The grizzlies have the advantage over most mortal things that aren’t several hundred pounds, but the Titans don’t exactly go down easily. Hell, it apparently takes a whole new set of gods to come in, which only really serves to imprison the Titans, and even then, you’ve got myths wherein Zeus overthrows Cronus by getting him drunk and putting him in a cave.

There’s simply no way a grizzly bear is walking out of that alive.

Detroit advances.

Fifth Annual Murphspot Mascot Bracket Championship

#10 Virginia Cavaliers vs. #15 Detroit Titans

 So we've established that the Titans are somewhere between a ridiculous man with a ridiculous smile in ridiculous armor and powerful (though explicitly not omnipotent) deities. The Cavaliers had, well, horses. And swords. And their own creepy smile. And a reputation for drinking and carousing and having plumed hats, which I sympathize with. Basically all they've got on the Titans is that the Cavaliers existed, whereas the Titans didn't, except as a moon of Saturn (or moons, if we're counting things named after individual Titans as part of that set).

Even there, we're conflicted. Titan's got an atmosphere, but it's got sort of a yellow haze to it. There are oceans, but they're made of methane. There might be microbial life, but that's not terribly threatening unless we're going to give the Cavalier some sort of terrible infection. 

And while, as I mentioned, the Titans are powerful, they also have a history of failing pretty hard. I'm not sure whether the Cavaliers have Zeus' contact information, or if they've got the ability to summon an iceberg, but it's not as though the Titans are unstoppable. It's merely really hard.

What it really comes down to is the interaction between a guy with a horse, a sword, and a rifle and a Titan with a tendency to be overthrown. I'm not finding a lot about human-Titan interactions in myth, and the Titan that keeps popping up is Prometheus, who would probably have just handed the victory to the Cavalier and then gotten tortured for it. 

 Honestly, I think that's it. I'm going to say that Tommy Titan is merciful toward CavMan and allows him the victory, based solely on his humanity and his facial hair. Tommy Titan will be OK. Clint Eastwood will make a commercial for him.

This may have been unduly influenced by hat plumage.

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Fifth Annual Murphspot Mascot Champion

 

The Virginia Cavaliers.