March Mascot Bracket Born – Rhyme and Reason

Let’s first qualify this by saying that I’ve never written a blog before (although I have appeared in them).  In fact, I was going to start this blog last year, but a combination of “not knowing how,” a gambling problem, a new subscription to Cinemax, and sheer laziness prevented this from happening.  But I did pick a March Madness bracket using this method in ‘06 and it actually outperformed my real one.  Actually,  if I didn’t BS myself out of a few wins, I would have had George Mason in the Final Four.   Anyway, let me get to it and explain what the hell I’m talking about…

March Madness is my favorite time of year.  I consider myself a novice college bball fan (more novice now since I’ve stopped gambling), one who will watch the occasion big game between Duke and UNC or Ohio State and Wisconsin, but most of the year is spent following my team (please insert BC/gambling joke here).  However, with this modest knowledge, I expect to be competitive in my office pools every year.  I obsess over the field of 65 until I have a solid grasp of all teams from Florida to Virginia Commonwealth.  But even after all of this, I finish in the middle of the pack – just high enough to keep me interested – and the office floozy who picked her bracket completely based on the team mascot walks away with the dough.  Which she’ll promptly turn around and spend on Bud Pounders and Trojans (ever wonder why they call them “Pounders”?).   

So after roughly 15 years of being a loser, I’ve decided to try and change my luck by picking this year’s bracket solely based on which mascot would win in a real life, mano-a-mano battle royal.  For instance, if the Providence Friars were to face the Duke Blue Devils, Providence would prevail due to their ability to excersize the demons.  Pretty straightforward.

However, since I am in the Public Relations field and enjoy the art of spin, I am going to break each matchup down, game-by-game, and explain (hopefully somewhat humorously) why that team will prevail.  Hopefully I’ll stick to my guns this year and not talk my way out of an obvious “win” (Lions over Wildcats, for example) like I did last year.  So following Selection Sunday on March 11th, I’ll be up late analyzing each team’s mascot, and filling out an entire bracket from start to finish this way.  I’ll also keep a running comparison between this and my “real” bracket, which will likely be housed at work. 

 Now, even though this is for fun, I need to set some ground rules so that this method doesn’t entirely blow up in my face:

1. Number 1 and 2 seeds will automatically be moved into the Round of 32.  Thanks to a great article by ESPN’s Pete Tiernan (Insider’s Only), a #1 seed has never lost to a #16 and a #2 seeds are 84-4 over #15’s since the field expanded to 64 teams.  Like I said, this is for fun, but I’m not crazy (anyone else with me that she’s kind of hot in her mug shot?)
2. Teams that have the same mascot name (UConn and Washington; BC and Winthrop; etc.) will come down to either which school has a cooler mascot uniform (Stanford, you are S.O.L.) or who I think will actually win the game.  This will both depend on my mood and how potentially funny my side comments can be.  Then again, I’m no Bill Simmons, nor do I pretend to be, so please lay off of the “you’re not funny, you’re an ass” comments.  I’m extremely sensitive.
3. I’ll be doing my own research into the history of the school mascots.  If someone finds a fact that is glaringly incorrect, please send the correct info my way.  If the error grossly affects the outcome of the game, I reserve the right to change my bracket.

That’s it.  I’ll provide a round-by-round description of why a team will win the game rather than a whole tourney breakdown so that it’s an easier read.  However, I’ll post both my brackets in JPEG form once I have them filled out so you’ll see that I’m no phony.  Let the madness begin…