2013 Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Final Four and Championship

#9 Missouri Tigers vs. #11 Belmont Bruins

I've been harping on Truman's over-earnest demeanor brow this entire time, and yet we're in the Final Four and he's still here.

Maybe I just like the idea of a mascot being named after a President who happened to be from the state, though not one who attended the University (as Harry Truman didn't have a college degree; I assume everything he needed to know, he learned in the hobo camps he slept in.)

I really do not want to know what one learns in hobo camps. I'm ok.

I am a little disappointed that they didn't restrict themselves to alumni, if only because we'd have a chance at the University of Missouri Fightin' Berengers.

I could have gone with Platoon Tom Berenger, but Major League Tom Berenger seems more fitting.

In the end, though, Bruiser just seems more determined, in addition to the fact that he's probably got a few hundred pounds on Truman and razor sharp claws.

Belmont advances.

#16 Western Kentucky Hilltoppers vs. #5 UNLV Rebels

Hey Reb! gets points for being the only mascot in the bracket whose proper name includes punctuation. It makes him seem more dynamic, which builds on the whole "soul-consuming eyes" and "fire conjured from his fingertips" mythos that we've previously established.

He's also got a big ridiculous statue on the UNLV campus.

I'm not entirely sure how Hey Reb! sees things. Maybe he's like a Ringwraith, but with a hat instead of a ring and Las Vegas instead of the Realm of the Unseen

So he's durable. And yet, at the core, he's a frontiersman. He's looking to get to the top of the next hill to see what's on the other side.

Big Red's already on the top of the hill, with his Shin Guards of Madness and Surprisingly Slender Ankles. He's also three years older than Hey Reb! (Hey Reb! in 1982 in order to replace controversial Confederate symbology with a frontiersman, while Big Red was designed in 1979 in order to make life better.)

I don't know how this would go down, as the minds of mere mortals would be shattered upon actually watching this battle.

But in the end, only one can win.

Western Kentucky advances.

#11 Belmont Bruins vs. #16 Western Kentucky Hilltoppers

And now we come to the unstoppable force against the immovable object. Or, I guess, the immovable object against a bear. I've always been pretty big on making up the rules as I go along for this thing, so while some other brackets would have eliminated Big Red long ago for not being something that can fight to the death, he's finally made it to the Final.

I appreciate Bruiser's physicality. It's built into his name, and he seems more than willing to tear something limb from limb. But in the end, I really don't think it's enough to withstand the overwhelming and probably pathological Joy represented by a mascot who doesn't seem to mind all that much that the primary directive for his design was to make his head look like a hill, because the college is on a hill and hills are nice.

It's his year.

2013 Murphspot Mascot Bracket Champion

BIG RED - WESTERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY

Whee-hah.

Post Bracket Comment

I've been writing this bracket for six years, watching it get progressively longer and more ridiculous and never quite sure who's reading it. I enjoy it, and I hope that it makes at least a few of you laugh.It was sort of a goofy, though nowhere near original idea in 2008 (when the Xavier Musketeers won over the Cal State Fullerton Titans by virtue of having actually existed), and looking back on those entries, they were really, really short compared to what I've got going now, and I'm not sure which is better.

I'm never quite sure whether I should keep doing this each March/April, but then someone winds up asking me about it and I decide to go ahead again, so I hope this was to your liking. Mostly, I just wanted to thank whoever's reading this for reading. I'll hopefully continue updating with non-mascot bracket related personal blogging (which I've gotten away from in recent years), but I won't post that all over social media.

Also, my sister and her husband have a dog who looks like the Billiken, and now I'm kind of frightened of him.

The stuff of nightmares

2013 Murphspot Mascot Bracket - Sweet Sixteen - South/East

#16 Western Kentucky Hilltoppers vs. #4 Michigan Wolverines

Wolverines have a reputation for ferocity, but I'm not sure how well just being ferocious is going to hold up against the screaming terror that is Big Red.

He's also got time for the occasional bit of solemn contemplation.

Part of the issue is that while they've got a team name, Michigan doesn't actually have a mascot. There's that wolverine from the 1920s who kept trying to kill his handlers (though, to be fair to the wolverine, we only really have the handlers' account of the whole thing), but even if we presume some sort of temporal anomaly that allows the Jazz Age wolverine to compete against Big Red, he'll be dazed by the advances in technology, commercial flight and the noted absence of Jelly Roll Morton.

Wolverine Blues, indeed.

I'm sure the wolverine would put up a fight, but Big Red abandoned fear when he donned the WKU lettering. I"m guessing he just swings his giant head open and tosses the wolverine in.

Western Kentucky advances.

#6 UCLA Bruins vs. #7 San Diego State Aztecs

I've been pretty emphatic in my belief that bears are basically monsters, and Joe Bruin is no different. He's three-quarters of a ton of claws and fury in light blue shorts, and I can't decide whether the shorts make him less intimidating (because it's a bear wearing shorts) or more intimidating (because he clearly doesn't care).

Fun fact: Brown bears are serially monogamous and are constantly doing this sort of nonsense.

Luckily for the Aztec, bears aren't really pack animals, because if they were humans would never have stuck around long enough to come up with college basketball. As the Aztec mascot exists as part of a standing army, he's got the ability to strategize and figure out how to take down a bear before it rips his head off. Atlatls, maybe, which I've read can be quite accurate. Most YouTube videos I've found regarding atlatls seem to throw that into question, but then again most of them are made by guys in Rockford who throw darts at stuff for fun.

Who am I kidding? I sort of want an atlatl now.

I'll assume the San Diego State Aztec is pretty good at things.

San Diego State advances.

#8 North Carolina State Wolfpack vs. #5 UNLV Rebels

Mr. and Mrs. Wuf are at least nominally part of a Wolfpack, but I also get the feeling they spend most of their time looking for yard sales and spoiling their grandkids. It's the sweaters and souvenir hats, I think.

If this were a competition about building models of tall ships, Mr. Wuf would win hands down.

On the other side of things, we've got Hey Reb, who will devour your soul in an unspeakably terrifying ceremony.

He just wants a hug! And to siphon all of your good memories!

Hey Reb also has a slightly less "buttoned-down surburbanite" vibe to him. More of a "lives in the middle of the desert and spends most of his time focused on his mustache, occasionally staggering into town to scream something about the Lizard Overlords Who Control Us All" sort of thing.

If this were the Murphspot Mascot Hat Bracket, Hey Reb would win convincingly. And why not.

UNLV advances.

#11 Bucknell Bison vs. #15 Pacific Tigers

I like Bucky the Bison. He's the size of a sedan, can move about as fast (if the sedan's in a residential neighborhood) and he seems genuinely pleased by the whole situation.

A little surprised, sure, but happy. Like he just found out he's going to a theme park.

Power Cat, on the other hand, has quickly become a grizzled veteran of the Mascot Bracket by virtue of the fact that he's been apparently designed to be grizzled.

The issue here is that I set out in the Rules at the beginning of this iteration of the bracket that Precedent Counts. As Power Cat has already taken care of the Colorado Buffalo, I'll have to apply the same result here, which leads me to regrettably take the Bison out of consideration. Which is a shame, because he had such a promising career as the head of a crime syndicate.

Pacific advances.

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.