March Madness, and picking gmaes by the mascots

We got into the mania tonight with the mascot matchups in our tournament pick ‘em on Yahoo. Join our league with us if you want…Go to yahoo and find the tournament pick ‘em, league id: 72850 and password: petecarroll

The criteria that determent the winner and loser came down to which mascot would defeat the other in a real fight.

Here is how the picks turned out. Surprisingly, we didn’t end up with too many low seeds. Memphis with their real tiger as a mascot joined the fiercest fighting force in history, the Michigan State Spartans, the fighting Illini from Illinois (c’mon, fighting is in their name) and the Xavier Musketeers (I assume that includes the three and maybe four, Chris O’Donnell) in the Final Four.

Surprisingly the saints of Siena made it to the regional finals. Who knew a saint with their poor fighting reputation and turn the other cheek mentality would advance. Often in this tournament, the key to advancing comes down to matchups. The Saints faced a tree in the Ohio Sate Buck eyes in the first round and a weak bird in the Louisville Cardinals in the second round. Finally, in the sweet sixteen, the Saints opposed the Deacon Deacons of Wake Forest. Many years, the Daemon Deacons advance a long way, because no one can stoop a spiritual force like that. However, the saints are perfectly suited to cast the Daemon Deacons out of the tournament.

The second round brought the most intriguing matchup of all. The Spartans faced the Trojans of Southern Cal. Troy had Helen on their side as a distraction, but as legend goes the Spartans wouldn’t have been interested. However, the Trojan horse showed ingenuity, yet the movie 300 clinches the deal. Both warriors were from the same Greek city-state era of history, but we all know the Spartans were the greatest of all the warriors in those city-states.

Some of the interesting matchups came right in the first round with a Bulldog against a Husky when Washington tried to move into the second round. A Husky obviously with the instinct and survival tactics of a harsh climate would have the makings to defeat a bulldog that has more fight in reputation than reality. Exhibit A, White Fang.

Memphis came out of the West region which was filled with cats, two Tigers and a panther that advanced to that region’s semi-finals. How does one decide between two Tigers? Memphis got the nod as they had a real Tiger as their mascot, one-of-two in the nation until last year when it was put down for mouth cancer at the age of 17.

Missing from this year’s tournament were forces of nature, Cyclones and Hurricanes along with the Lion which usually beat all of the animals in the tournament.

The weakest nickname came from Chattanooga, the Mocs a shortened name from the Moccasins when depicting a Native American chief in 1996. I am not sure why they didn’t go back to a former mascot of the water-moccasin (a feared animal as depicted in the twenties) or just the shoe like they had in the sixties.