Mascot Bracket 2014 - Round One - Midwest

#1 Wichita State Shockers vs. #16 Texas Southern Tigers

WuShock is one of those really weird mascots that I never know what to do with. Wheat isn't threatening, per se, but I have very, very little experience with Wheat Elementals.

Sure, I guess.

I have, however, just confirmed that there don't seem to be any Magic: The Gathering cards that use a Wheat Elemental (or wheat anything, really), which I assume is just a gross oversight by Wizards of the Coast.

The thing is, I don't see the Tigers being much of a threat to the wheat; sure, it can use it for cover, but that only works if there's some other enemy. As near as I can tell, the Tigers will keep trying to pounce at nothing and always failing, while the Wheat abides.

Wichita State advances.

#8 Kentucky Wildcats vs. #9 Kansas State Wildcats

ARE YOU SERIOUS WITH THIS.

Ok. NCAA. Here's the thing.

I am over Wildcats. I am completely over them. It's difficult to come up with any sort of actual mascot fight because there are only so many ways I can repeat that these are bobcats or similar at best, and probably they're just cats in the desert being cats.

It'd be one thing if there could be a climactic match between a Wildcat and some sort of rodent mascot, but it's just Wildcats as far as the eye can see.

I don't know. Let's give it to Kansas State purely based on head size and move on with our day.

Proportions are not a thing at Kansas State.

Kansas State advances.

#5 Saint Louis Billikens vs. #12 North Carolina State Wolfpack

See? We don't have to be locked into innumerable iterations of the same damned cat. We can invent completely new mascots that make no sense to anyone outside of turn of the twentieth century schoolteachers in St. Louis.

Sure, NC State has the wolfpack, but given the sailor hat on Mr. Wuf, I'm not entirely convinced he is going to even Wolf properly, and that's before we get into whatever kind of sorcery comes along with being a Billiken.

There's probably some sorcery. Has to be.

Saint Louis advances.

#4 Louisville Cardinals vs. #13 Manhattan Jaspers

Manhattan seems to have more of a namesake than an actual mascot which, in a sense, is what Harvard's trying to pull off with the occasional trotting-out of a big poofy-headed John Harvard. There's probably some significance to both examples being clergymen.

Unlike John Harvard, it turns out that Brother Jasper of Mary has a not-completely-out-there claim to being the guy who invented the seventh-inning stretch. As a fan of watching baseball, but also a fan of my own circulation, he gets points for that. He's also indirectly responsible for having celebrities (mostly minor) scream off-key into a microphone at Wrigley, but I won't hold that against him.

Anthropomorphic-seed-eating-bird or no, I'm thinking being armed with a bat works out in Jasper's favor.

Manhattan advances.

#6 Massachusetts Minutemen vs. #11 Iowa Hawkeyes

I'm not sure what exactly is going on with the Minuteman's eyebrows and very, very toothy grin, but suffice it to say I'm a little uneasy about the whole ordeal.

It's like a perpetual "How you doin'?"

I've already had the Hawkeyes beat a local militia, and so precedence should hold here, and it'd be unfair to Vols fans to suddenly turn it around and say the local militia with less accurate arms would succeed where they've failed.

In fact, on the topic of accuracy, if we just make this about Hawkeye, a skilled archer but otherwise normal guy, fighting the Minutemen (that is, the in-story-Golden-Age set of characters from Watchmen), this becomes a lot easier. Hawkeye's probably going to pick them off while they brood about the nature of existence as superheroes.

Iowa advances.

#3 Duke Blue Devils vs. #14 Mercer Bears

You know what, fine. I'll allow that the Blue Devils are at once some sort of demon who is allowed to run around with a trident despite having no apparent interest in spear-fishing and a reference to a World War I French military unit.  I might prefer it if they were the Blue Demons and each player had to wear a luchador mask, but I think I'll just have to wait for DePaul to make a tournament appearance.

Toby Bear gets some points for actually looking like the sort of thing that would tear my arm off despite being named Toby, but I'm guessing Les Diables Bleus have the weapons to take care of that.

Sorry, Toby. Also, please don't tear my arms off.

Duke advances.

#7 Texas Longhorns vs. #10 Arizona State Sun Devils

I don't know much about Sparky in particular or what constitutes a Sun Devil in general. Is it mostly about the pitchfork, or are supernatural powers fair game? If the latter, do they have to involve the sun? Sparky might have the power to swap out your sunscreen for something that offers considerably less protection.

As for the Longhorns, I am sure they're dangerous. And I am positive that it could kill me, much like pretty much everything in the bracket that isn't Otto the Orange. But in the end, it's a cow.

Arizona State advances.

#2 Michigan Wolverines vs. #15 Wofford Terriers

Oh hey, it's time for my daily "No, honestly, I have nothing against dogs. I don't know why they lose immediately all the time" post.

I know terriers. They're great. Boston terriers are great, which is what Wofford's mascot is. But they're terriers. You never see something like a mastiff as a mascot, which might make me think about this for a second.

I'm sorry, Wofford. There's no way.

Michigan advances.

Mascot Bracket 2014 - Round One - West Region

#1 Arizona Wildcats vs. #16 Weber State Wildcats

Now just what in the hell is this? I'm now expected to judge the various merits of the same damn mascot? And it's not even one of the more threatening ones?

Fine.

Wilbur Wildcat, hat aside, has pretty malevolent eyes and actually makes me a bit wary. Like he might be concealing a shiv or something. Waldo Wildcat on the other hand has a big poofy face that places him squarely on the "amenable to Fancy Feast" spectrum of Wildcatness.

Arizona advances.

#8 Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. #9 Oklahoma State Cowboys

I like bulldogs. They're stout, tenacious little things, and they can have a decent amount of heft to them. But at most, they're 55-60 pounds and frankly, Pistol Pete should have experience dealing with much larger fare.

Like Nightmares.

Spike the Bulldog does have that collar, I guess and might even be able to get a few good bites in, but besides the personal arms that the name Pistol Pete implies, it seems Oklahoma State could probably just throw a tennis ball really far away and be done with it.

Oklahoma State advances.

#5 Oklahoma Sooners vs. #12 North Dakota State Bison

On one hand, going by the mascots, Boomer and Sooner are Welsh Ponies, which isn't all that intimidating. On the other hand, they're named after the settlers in two waves of American expansion into the "Unassigned Lands" (though if the Civil War hadn't just happened, I imagine your opinion on whether the lands were assigned was different if you were in the Creek or Seminole nations).

And while obviously the Boomers and Sooners were pretty late to the party in terms of US Settlers, here are the population counts for Bison in 1500 and in the early twentieth century.

Year	Estimated Bison Population
1500	30,000,000 to 60,000,000
1902	Approx. 700

So, yes.

Oklahoma advances.

#4 San Diego State Aztecs vs. #13 New Mexico State Aggies

I've never really warmed to the Aggies, or at least these Aggies. I'm biased toward the unfamiliar, which is why I am browsing for Coastal Carolina Chanticleers hats that don't look ridiculous. But New Mexico State fails both at having an original name (Yes! You have an agricultural college. That's fun.) and at having an original mascot, as they share Pistol Pete with Oklahoma State.

Man can wear a vest, though.

Yes, NMSU's Pistol Pete is more dapper, but that's not what I want in a Pistol Pete. I want grit and probably some sort of debilitating aversion to baths. Meanwhile, San Diego State can just build a city-state and roll on through.

San Diego State advances.

#6 Baylor Bears vs. #11 Nebraska Cornhuskers

"Bears vs. Guy who pulls the husks off of corn" is a foregone conclusion, but I'd like to take a second to say that name notwithstanding, Lil' Red is absurd enough that I'm a fan. To not only embrace the whole cornhusker thing but to put out there as one of the faces of your team a big, happy, inflatable cousin-of-the-Bob's-Big-Boy mascot is pretty great. My extensive research (read: less than three minutes of clicking around on YouTube) suggests he flops around, which is even better.



In the end, though, bears have claws, and inflatable things don't do well with that.

Baylor advances.

#3 Creighton Blue Jays vs. #14 Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns

I would love nothing more than for the Ragin' Cajuns to advance, if for no other reason that I'd like an excuse to keep listening to Calvin Borel's accent.


But this is a very serious Mascot Bracket, and the mascot I've got to work with is Cayenne, the anthropomorphic cayenne pepper. That might stand a chance against some sort of mammal with a pepper sensitivity (or against one of the other food mascots on flavor alone), but birds aren't sensitive to peppers, so this one ends with Billy the Bluejay slowly eating his opponent.

Creighton advances.

#7 Oregon Ducks vs. #10 Brigham Young Cougars

This seems like something that'd show up on one of the more tasteless and killin'-things oriented nature shows. I'm no ornithologist, but I feel like I have a reasonably good grasp of what a duck has in its bag of tricks, at least insofar as a fight to the death with a cougar is concerned.

Look at his eyes. I feel like I just told him happiness was cancelled.

I'm sorry, Oregon Duck. This doesn't go your way.

Brigham Young advances.

#2 Wisconsin Badgers vs. #15 American Eagles

Badgers have a reputation for being pretty fierce, despite my opinions on Bucky Badger's penchant for sweaters.

Note: Even with the sweater, I'm still a little scared of Bucky

I'm a bit torn about the American Eagles. On one hand, the name "The American Eagles" makes me want to go buy fireworks and concentrated Freedom while watching baseball with a cadre of Country-Western singers. On the other hand, omitting the "the" and just being left with "American Eagles" makes me feel like I'm in a mall.

Which I guess is also pretty American.

Works for me.

American advances.

Mascot Bracket 2014 - Round One - East Region

#1 Virginia Cavaliers vs. #16 Coastal Carolina Chanticleers

Every so often, a team makes it in as a #16 seed that I haven't seen before and absolutely astonishes me with their mascot. This year, it's the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers. I admire a school that can look at the glut of bears and tigers and alligators and the rest and then settle on the rooster from The Nun's Priest's Tale.

Going back a bit for that reference Coastal Carolina. Well done.

As much as I really, really want to see the Chanticleers win this, CavMan has weapons and the only thing I've ever seen a blue chicken do is cheer up an NPC in Ocarina of Time.

Proving yet again that if you run enough errands, someone will eventually give you a giant sword.

Virginia advances.

#8 Memphis Tigers vs. #9 George Washington Colonials

I've got to try to reconcile my concept of tigers as leaping balls of death and claws with Memphis' logo. I know the Tiger is pouncing, but the positioning of his claws makes it seem like he just wants to give you a hug.

Maybe that's how tigers kill, though. They might hug you and then rip into you. My closest experience with anything tiger-like is my housecat, who follows up pouncing with running away and hiding.

In any case, George Washington presumably has some tactical advantage here, even if I can't verify by finding a historical reenactment group that uses tigers as the British.

George Washington advances.

#5 Cincinnati Bearcats vs. #12 Harvard Crimson

Oh man, the Fighting Binturongs. Cincinnati gets the standard "animal no-one else picked" bonus in this fight, while Harvard kind of hangs me out there with very little to grasp onto.

I can't really say the *color* crimson would win over a bearcat (and I can't find any source about the range of color vision of bearcats, so I'll presume they can see the Crimson to attack). Harvard's mascot, such as it is, is just John Harvard. I'm not sure his ministry education would have included how to deal with Southeast Asian wildlife.

No, it's fine. Don't get up.

Cincinnati advances.

#4 Michigan State Spartans vs. #13 Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens

Damn it, NCAA. You had a golden opportunity here to rig the seeding and have the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers face the Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens in the first ever Blue-Chicken-off. All it would have cost was any semblance of the idea that the seeding reflected regular season performance.

I could be writing about the relative merits of fictional vs. nonfictional blue chickens. Reynard the Fox could have refereed. Instead, I've got big dudes with swords and spears against a bird that can only sort of fly. Where's your sense of whimsy, NCAA?

He can strut, though. I'll give him that.

Michigan State advances.

#6 North Carolina Tar Heels vs. #11 Providence Friars     

You ever have that dream where realize it’s the end of the semester that you've got a final for a class you've never gone to in a subject you've never studied and it counts for 100% of the grade? And then, when you go to take it, you look up from your test and the world has been transformed into a nightmarish hellscape and you know, instinctively, that you'll be forced to wander the wasteland looking for a way to stop the Unyielding Horror?

That's how I feel when I look into Friar Dom's eyes.

!

I was going to give this to the Tar Heels, but my soul has been crushed and there's nothing that an anthropomorphic ram can do to fix things.

Providence advances.

#3 Iowa State Cyclones vs. #14 North Carolina Central Eagles

Finally, a proper bird-off. While Iowa State calls themselves the Cyclones, they're trotting out Cy the Malevolent and Tooth-Filled Cardinal.

So now we've got an actual bird of prey in the Eagles going up against a bird that has far exceeded the number of teeth birds should have and I'm not sure who comes out on top.

Cy's certainly more dangerous than an average cardinal, but the Eagles are probably more adept at quickly attacking and overwhelming their opponent. Cy could bite, sure, but I don't know how one bites an eagle. I'm pretty sure I couldn't bite an eagle.

North Carolina Central advances.

#7 Connecticut Huskies vs. #10 Saint Joseph’s Hawks

Hawks, I think, generally have the advantage over dogs that they can attack swiftly, fly away and repeat. here, though, I think we need to consider the choice-of-venue dictum. In this case, as huskies are sled-pulling dogs, I'm guessing that's somewhere in the far north.

This winter is relentless and brutal and will never end, and while I'm barely able to make it from the door to my car without my beard freezing over, huskies have just been running around. Attached to sleds. That's enough in my opinion to put them over the top.

Connecticut advances.

#2 Villanova Wildcats vs. #15 Milwaukee Panthers

I've been pretty consistent in being unimpressed with wildcats as they are, as near as I can tell, just cats. You could draw some tenuous connection to bobcats, but even then, it's probably not going to hold its own against Puma concolor.

Even with the melange-tinted eyes, there's no way Villanova comes out of this one cleanly.

As it turns out, Will D. Cat is the mind-killer.

Milwaukee advances.

Murphspot Mascot Bracket 2014 - Round of 64 - South Region

#1 Florida Gators vs. #16 Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers

My rule about venue means this is taking place at or below sea-level in either a swamp or a sewer or a John Deere factory, where Gators have the advantage.

 

I remain convinced that this is my alma mater's mascot's namesake, as alligators are a bit thin on the ground in Northwestern Pennsylvania

I've got a feeling that for the most part, unfamiliarity is going to work against Mount St. Mary's; sure, you can orient yourself in the wilderness and start a fire with some moss and a piece of wet burlap, but those skills don't necessarily help when your opponent is low to the ground and toothy.

Florida advances.

#8 Colorado Buffaloes vs. #9 Pittsburgh Panthers

Here's a matchup. Colorado's got size on their side, but Pittsburgh has the advantage in terms of speed and agility and number of eye-gouging claws. Even set in the Great Plains, where the Panther can't exactly get the jump on the Buffalo, I can't see this going well.

A quick search of completely unsourced speculation from people who have no idea what they're talking about suggests both mascots would top out in terms of running speed at 35 mph, but unless the panther just stands there and lets itself be run over, I can't imagine mass wins over claws.

Pittsburgh advances.

#5 Virginia Commonwealth Rams vs. #12 Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks

I'm sure rams are perfectly fine at what they do. I'm not entirely sure what that consists of, but probably ramming, a fair bit of grazing and having some pretty intimidating horns.

But there is no way the Lumberjacks don't win this. "Sheep with Horns" doesn't sound too intimidating against "Large Man with Axes and Saws and Flannel and the willingness to show trees who runs things around here".

Obligatory. Clearly.

Stephen F. Austin advances.

#4 UCLA Bruins vs. #13 Tulsa Golden Hurricanes

I've long held the stance that bears are basically monsters, but hadn't encountered the Golden Hurricane until this year. I could just make a bunch of really, really juvenile jokes here, but I won't.

Tulsa, at least, has either the presence of mind or crassness to name their team after a natural disaster they'll never have to actually put up with. On the other hand, they got rid of their awesome cyclone-headed Huffy mascot and replaced it with a generic superhero who is mostly chin.

How could you, Tulsa?

That said, bears probably won't fare to well against a weather system.

Tulsa advances.

#6 Ohio State Buckeyes vs. #11 Dayton Flyers

Ohio State always has a tough time in the bracket, as buckeyes aren't really so much "menacing" as "poisonous if you happen to eat one, unless we're talking about the confectionery, in which case they're delicious."

Rudy Flyer, on the other hand, seems to have everything more or less in order. If he's got the wherewithal to fly a plane, I'm going to grant that he's smart enough not to try to eat his enemy.

I want to see him open for The Aquabats circa 1999.

Dayton advances.

#3 Syracuse Orange vs. #14 Western Michigan Broncos

Otto is fun and all, and in recent years he's gotten more toothy, but unless citric acid is some sort of contact poison to untamed horses, this one is going to end pretty swiftly.

Even if Buster Bronco does have a sort of droopy-lidded-may-have-just-been-tranq-ed look about him, I'm pretty sure he can just step on his opponent and be on his way.

Western Michigan advances.

#7 New Mexico Lobos vs. #10 Stanford Cardinal

I'm sorry, Stanford. You're a fantastic school and in the actual world, I hope you do well here. But your mascot is a tree and your team name is a color. I can't even go with a sort of surprise upset by a passerine bird here.

New Mexico has wolves. I'm sorry. They win this one.

New Mexico advances.

#2 Kansas Jayhawks vs. #15 Eastern Kentucky Colonels

I know that in my Rules I specifically used the Jayhawks as an example of a mascot that I hold no malice against, but would probably rule against based on nothing but his shoes.

Here, though, we've got a fictional bird (whose name alludes to the free-state Jayhawkers) going up against a Kentucky Colonel. That might not imply overwhelming military might as it's a title of honor, but the most famous Kentucky Colonel literally made his fortune killing birds, breading them, frying them and serving them as food. The mascot even looks like Harland Sanders.

Bonus points for showing off the lapel pin.

Eastern Kentucky advances.