Lilly Donahue | Indiana University

Everyone has a fun idea on how to fill out their bracket, some do it by stats, others by colors, or even by hermit crab (see our twitter)! For my bracket in the Student U Group, I obviously made picks based off of merit, but I also decided to make a second bracket based solely off of which mascot would win in a fight. It’s terrible. Here are the results:

 

East Region

The bracket starts off terrible with me giving the edge to the New Orleans Privateers over the Villanova Wildcats because privateers run warships and cats don’t like water. The privateers also defeat the Wisconsin Badgers, but fall the the Florida Gators because of a famous Disney film.

After some research on National Geographic, I decided that a bear would in fact defeat an alligator in a head-to-head matchup, which pushed Baylor past Florida, making the Bears the East region’s Final Four representative.

West Region

The West region plays host to the most unlikely winner of all four regions. Princeton is almost edged out by Notre Dame, and while I think an angry leprechaun could give a tiger a run for his money, Princeton still wins out. By the Sweet 16, three of the four remaining teams are cat-based mascots, two wildcats and a tiger. I gave the edge to the Princeton Tigers, who overcame the two-seeded Arizona Wildcats to be the West region’s Final Four rep. Even if Princeton doesn’t pan out, they’ll still probably be upper management in 4 years, plus they have this awesome lady as one of their alums:

Midwest Region

Kansas loses in the first round to NC Central, because an eagle is a hell of a lot better than whatever a jayhawk claims to be. Rhode Island also goes on a nice little run (which isn’t that unrealistic) because if you’ve ever seen the Angry Ram videos on Youtube, you know that rams are not an animal to mess with. In the end, however, it’s the Miami Hurricanes who reign supreme, because you can’t stop a hurricane. This region even features a weather-on-weather matchup between Miami and the Iowa State Cyclones, but I decided that hurricanes are more destructive overall. Plus, was it a tornado that drove Alexander Hamilton out of the Caribbean and into the US? Nope, it was a patriotic hurricane.

South Region

For starters, I don’t understand why there’s a midwest region instead of a north region, but that’s a discussion for another time. Top seeded UNC immediately falls to Texas Southern, because literally wtf is a Tar Heel?? If someone with tar on their heel was getting attacked by a tiger, wouldn’t the tar just hold them back? We also have the weird matchup of two electricity themed teams in the Kent State Golden Flashes and the Wichita State Shockers. I give the edge to Wichita State because they cover any type of shock, while Kent State is just lightning. Wichita State goes on to electrocute all their rivals on the way to the Final Four.

Final Four

Baylor v. Princeton, or, in this case, bears versus tigers. I consulted an online wildlife page where some guy analyzes a fight between a tiger and a bear, and he says the tiger would definitely win. This puts 12 seeded Princeton into the title game against…

Miami v. Wichita State/ Hurricanes v. Shockers. This is a bizarre matchup, but I decided that water can short out electricity, but electricity cannot stop a hurricane. If anything, adding electricity to a hurricane would just make a giant toaster in a bathtub scenario, so the Canes go on to the championship.

The championship game is a breeze. While tigers enjoy water, they’d be no match for a massive hurricane. Miami takes the title as Ivy Leaguers everywhere cry, or, in their words, cascade into a profound chasm of lamentation.

Do you think think this system will work? Only time will tell! (it won’t)