We’re All Mad Here

Yes, it’s that time again. You might recall last year’s post about brackets and certain choices I made with them. It was perhaps a unique look into how my brain works.

Turns out, choosing a basketball tournament winner based on mascots is an abject failure.

So we’re trying something different this year. Instead of pitting mascots against one another in an arena, I’m focusing on team names.

I don’t have high hopes for the results.

But it amuses me, and I hope you find it at least somewhat entertaining.

First, I need to address something that annoyed me to no end. And that is the directionally-challenged choices for each quadrant of teams. There’s an East. There’s a West. There’s a South. And there’s a Midwest.

Honestly, you might as well just call us the Middle. Or just go by time zones, for crying out loud. North is a literal compass point! It’s the one everyone uses the most! Follow the North Star!

Whatever. It’s dumb, but I don’t make the rules, and we’re all suffering as a result.

So let’s start in the South, I guess, because we read left to right, and for whatever reason, the top left corner of the bracket is a list of southern teams. Oh wait, no it’s not! Freaking Michigan is playing UC San Diego, I guess because U of M is in southern Michigan and San Diego is as far south as you can get in California before crossing the Mexican border. Can someone explain this to me? I could look it up, but I don’t actually care enough to do that.

So what does it mean to choose based on team names? Well, like I said, the Michigan Wolverines are up against the San Diego Tritons. The Aggies are against the Bulldogs. It’s what the teams call themselves, regardless of what their mascot happens to be. And more often than you’d think, the mascots don’t exactly fit the team name.

For example, the Aggies’ mascot is actually a rough collie named Reveille. How the Aggies, whatever those are, gained a dog mascot is I’m sure a fascinating story for the students and fans of Texas A&M. But we’re not focusing on the dog. We’re focusing on the nebulous concept of Aggies.

So let’s get started. I’m going off of the CBS brackets before we actually get down to the 63 teams, so some of these may not even be true (we’ll talk about those when we get there), but I wanted to get this out now in case anyone wanted to copy my brilliance.

The South: these were actually fairly straightforward. The Tigers will beat the Hornets, the Lobos will beat the Eagles (Golden or not), and the Spartans will beat the Bulldogs. (Sooo many Bulldogs!) I had to let AI give me some insight into Cardinals and Bluejays, but I ultimately went with the Bluejays. They are mean. The Cyclones present a challenge, because while a cyclone will eventually dissipate, and Bison can generally avoid a cyclone, if they go head to head, bison are not outrunning a cyclone. You’re getting tenderized bison burgers. Two human groups gave me pause. The Rebels are fighting the Aztecs. I’m going to admit a bit of bias against these particular Rebels (very much a reference to the Civil War), but I can’t honestly bet against a group that participates in human sacrifice. Rebel hearts can be broken, I guess. But the truly fascinating fight is the Wolverines versus the Tritons. Why? Because Tritons are gods. And we’re not talking Little Mermaid Triton, we’re talking multiple Tritons. And while wolverines can actually swim, Tritons literally control the water.

This made the subsequent rounds pretty easy. As much as a tiger can eat a bluejay and a Spartan can beat a wolf (lobos), Tritons are going to wipe the floor of all of them. Including Cyclones, because there’s an element of water in a cyclone.

Let’s go West, young man. There are more Spartans, and unfortunately, I do think they can kill some Gators. Sooners, which are people, will absolutely let Huskies, who will definitely be singing the song of their ancestors, stomp all over them. Grizzlies (another well-represented animal) are bigger and faster than Rams. ‘Lopes’ (so dumb) will stomp on Terripans (which are turtles … just call yourselves the turtles). Tigers will enjoy the Bulldog snack, Red Raiders (more people) will kill some Seahawks, and Razorback pigs are going to slaughter the Jayhawks. It gets interesting when you discover that the Red Storm will be fighting the Mavericks.

This was one of many amorphous beings that I had to apply some logic and interpretation toward. What is a Red Storm? I know what a Maverick is, though it can also be quite broad in its definition (and the mascot does not fit the name). But for the Red Storm, I had to do some research into the team, and indeed into the mascot. And historically, St. John’s were called the Redmen. And contrary to ‘popular’ belief, it was not actually a reference to Native Americans. (Try telling that to an SJW, though.) It was solely due to the color of the uniforms. That’s it.

They would have gone farther if it had been something else. But in further rounds, they’re getting wiped out by the Red Raiders, who in turn will be wiped out by Spartans. (This is precisely where my bracket will likely utterly fail because the second Spartans come from Norfolk State. And if you’re replying to that with ‘who?’, exactly. They are a 16th seed. And those upsets don’t happen often. Twice, actually. (Granted, both of those were in the last 10 years, but that means nothing.)) Nevertheless, the Spartans win the South.

Let’s go East. This quadrant has some gimmies. Cougars will beat Rams, Grizzlies will beat Badgers (as much as I love badgers, I must be realistic), Bears will beat Bulldogs, and Wildcats will beat Zips because no one knows what Zips are. (I do, because I couldn’t not look it up. It’s a shoe. Yeah. And for whatever reason, their mascot is a kangaroo. Because those definitely go hand in hand. Or foot in pocket?) But what about Ducks against Flames? If you’re on land, a duck might run into trouble. But in water, a duck can go underwater or splash some water on those flames. I gave the Blue Devils a pass mostly because it’s Duke. But then you have the Gaels up against the Commodores and the Crimson Tide against Colonials.

The latter is somewhat subjective (because the rest of this is totally objective) in that it’s two groups of humans once again duking it out. I am biased for the colonials as hearty and persevering folk. The crimson tide is really just the fans (probably Commies). And as much as I love fans of things and being a fan of things, I must side with the Colonials. As for the Gaels, we had this conversation last year because the mascot does actually match the nickname. A Gael is a Celt, someone who speaks Gaelic. And for this reason, they won the East. I don’t mess with Scots or the Irish. (Why do the Irish get an article and Scots don’t? I guess you could call them the Scots, but it’s not a hard-and-fast rule.)

Finally, that weird outlier, the Midwest. This was the first time we had same nicknames against one another, i.e. Cougars v Cougars and Bulldogs v Bulldogs. For the purposes of the bracket, I did have to pick one or the other, so there may have been a little bit of cheating because I gave myself a leg up as far as ranking goes. In two matchups, the big cats lost out to humans. Sorry, but humans are an apex predator. And we have guns. So the Cowboys and Boilermakers advanced. I reversed this for the Trojans, because I think the Trojans would be just as confused by a wildcat as they were by a horse. (And Orlando Bloom made me hate Paris even more.) I couldn’t let another Aggies team advance, though, so I took a page from The Revenant and let the Bruins prevail. The Volunteers are going to kick some Terrier butt.

Finally, the most interesting bout for me is one that we don’t actually know yet. The Illini are either going up against the Longhorns or the Musketeers. CBS assumed it will be the Longhorns. (For the other game, they picked American University over Mount St. Mary’s. I don’t know if they know something no one else knows. And for that game, it didn’t matter because their opponent is Duke, and a devil, blue or otherwise, will likely beat an eagle or a mountaineer. I will laugh if I’m wrong. With just a tinge of hysteria.) Anyway, I will have to admit to fudging this one a bit. Because historically, the Illini were a confederation of Native American tribes in the Mississippi River Valley. And surely, a confederation of tribes will prevail over both Longhorns and Musketeers. (Though I did appreciate Chris O’Donnell’s d’Artagnan. And Matthew Macfadyen’s Athos.) But I can’t do it. Illini is just a dumb name. They used to have such a cool logo, and now it’s a big orange I. I’m not rewarding them for that.

Also, down the line, you get Longhorns vs Cowboys, and I couldn’t help myself. (Why do you get that particular showdown? Because the Cowboys would beat Boilermakers. For this match, I took inspiration from the classic musical Oklahoma! The cowboy wins the girl, not the farmer, and a farmer was the closest analogue I could think of to a boilermaker. Ignore the part of the musical where the cowboy goes on to become a farmer.) Anyway, all this to say that the Cowboys took the Midwest because their job is literally to herd cattle, thereby ensuring their victory over the Longhorns.

We’re down to the Final Four, now. Representing the South, we have the Tritons. Representing the West, we have the Spartans. Representing the East, we have the Gaels. And representing the Midwest, we have the Cowboys.

(I couldn’t have done this without Grok.)

From here, it’s actually really easy. Gaels over Cowboys, Tritons over Spartans. And Tritons over all. Because again, they are mythological gods. You’d be hard pressed to find something in the annals of mythos or history that will defeat a god in a fair fight. Granted, Tritons are primarily found in water, and basketball is not typically played in water. A lot of these team nickname things don’t spend the majority of their time in water. But Tritons are not limited to water. You know, in this completely real scenario where amphibious gods exist.

We ran into this problem last year, actually. Some mascots or team names are just wildly overpowered. Now we have 12th seed UC San Diego prevailing over all other comers.

Again, feel free to borrow my brilliance and copy my bracket. I’m sure we will be the talk of the town.