The Mascot Matchup - Midwest Region

Yes indeed, the Mascot Matchups are back. Hours of work are in. 5 posts this year. One for each region, one for the Final 4. Here's the first region, the Midwest.

FIRST ROUND
1 Kansas Jayhawks vs 16 Portland State Vikings

On the surface, a Viking is indeed a more menacing mascot than a Jayhawk. But what is a Jayhawk? According to Kansas, it is a combination of “two birds-the blue jay, a noisy, quarrelsome thing known to rob nests, and the sparrow hawk, a stealthy hunter. Therefore, a Jayhawk is ACTUALLY a mythological creation. Vikings believed in mythology, and lived in fear of myths like Thor. Therefore, it's obvious that Vikings are stupid, and would bow to a mythological creature.

8 UNLV Running Rebels vs 9 Kent St. Golden Flashes

This is a simple one to diagnose. The Rebels are obviously consumed by a quest for gold, which is why they ran out west. Now there's the Mandalay Bay, Venetian, and Montecito on the strip in Vegas. So history says that Rebels and their little pans were actually targeting flashes of gold and since they got unbelievably rich, they therefore win.

5 Clemson Tigers vs 12 Villanova Wildcats

The bane of this Mascot Matchup are the so called giant cats. Seems like about one out of every three of these games has some kind of ferocious cat-like creature. Now with two of them facing off, how would one propose a winner be determined in a fight? I guess we go with home-field advantage. Big city cat goes into the country? Sure, this classic fish out of water tale would normally end with the Wildcat bringing a cool urban flair to normal country values if it were a movie. You know, the Wildcat would earn teammates respect, and show them what a cheese steak is while getting them all to buy Rustlers that are too big. But this ain't Hollywood. This is real life. Life or death mascot fights. In real life, the wild cat would get into the country and see a snake for the first time ever, get bit on the snout and die 2 minutes into the movie. Tigers advance.

4 Vanderbilt Commodores and 13 Siena Saints

A saint is a particularly good, holy person. Mother Teresa was said to be a saint. And for all the good she did taking care of kids and stuff, I don't suspect she'd be too hard to beat to a pulp. Therefore, Commodores win.

6 USC Trojans vs 11 Kansas St.

Yippee another Wildcat. I don't recall what part of greek and roman history a trojan was. I think Brad Pitt was one in that movie against the dude from Black Hawk Down. I do remember though a fight between some old greek/roman dude and a cat. In Gladiator, River Phoenix's brother was trying to kill Maximus, and he had a tiger in the pit to sneak attack him when he wrestled Lord Humongous. But he put a sword through that tiger's chest and won. Give me Maximus

3 Wisconsin Badgers vs. 14 Cal St. Fullerton Titans

OK, a Titan is a moon and a pickup truck. I don't know how you'd stage a fight with a MOON. A badger a furry woodland creature. As the higher seed, it would be fought in badger territory. That means water, I think. Badgers, Beavers, woodchucks it's all the same. Though I may have made this error before. Every time there's flooding anywhere, we're reminded not to drive through puddles. I think that would apply to this matchup. Sure, the truck COULD run over the badger on the interstate, but in a river, it would get silt in the air intake, and die. So really, all the badger has to do is stay behind it's dam and advance.

7 Gonzaga Bulldogs vs 10 Davidson Wildcats

Really, three wildcats in one region? Was the selection committee high? To me, this is a bigger issue than having two conference schools in one half of a bracket, or Tennessee being in UNC's region. This is THREE Wildcats together? I have to eliminate them before trying to fight Wildcat vs Wildcat in the next round. In the cartoons dogs chase cats, and Gonzaga just chased Davidson out of the mascot matchup.

2 Georgetown Hoyas vs the 15 UMBC Retrievers

While, a Hoya isn't even a real dog, it's hard to dress a kid up as a word. Or fight a word. So we'll go with the mascot more so than the nickname. So, now, NCAA Selection committee , we've had three dogs in a row, in addition to our over abundance of big cats. Now I remember why I didn't want to do this again. Anyway, the first Hoya mascot was a dog named Stubby. Stubby went to France in World War I and was a pretty good dog as he came back a Sergeant. So while retrievers are generally my favorite dogs, I've never met one that was an officer. Georgetown wins.

MIDWEST SECOND ROUND
Kansas Jayhawks vs UNLV Runnin' Rebels

A Jayhawk isn't actually a bird, the bird is a mere pictorial depiction of what a native Kansan looks like. The term came to describe Kansans at a time in their history when the area was known as Bleeding Kansas because there was all kinds of fighting going on in the area with Missouri over the border or something. Either way, they're blood-thirsty, UNLV is simply money hungry. Motivation leads Kansas to a second round victory.

Clemson Tigers vs Vanderbilt Commodores

While the Commodore 64 was a fine computer in its' day, the Commodore 32 never really did much of anything. I think a tiger could eat a computer, especially one that doesn't even have the internet.

Wisconsin Badgers vs USC Trojans

OK, apparently a badger isn't a water animal, but one from the grasslands. Oops, my bad. That's fine, Trojans aren't exactly afraid of water or grass. An epic slaughter.

Georgetown Hoyas vs Gonzaga Bulldogs

OK, so a bulldog versus a bulldog. Not exactly sure where to go here. Where's Michael Vick when I need him? Oh, jail, yeah. But his kennel was in Virginia, and seemed to be pretty good, so when it comes to fighting dogs, I guess the east coast has a leg up on the west coast. Especially since they said dog fighting was a country thing, and I don't know of that much country out west. Georgetown wins, but their prize is a trip to the Bad Newz Kennel. Oops

MIDWEST SWEET SIXTEEN
Kansas Jayhawks vs Clemson Tigers

So far, Kansas has advanced based on it's mythological properties, then due to it's more literal definition. However, I don't care if it's a mythological resident of Kansas combining all the powers of both, it's going to run into trouble when it comes to a fight with a Tiger.

USC Trojans vs Georgetown Hoyas

While represented by a bulldog, a Hoya is actually some kind of old Greek exclamation meaning “what?” that the students used to yell at baseball games. I guess you could say they were the early WWE fans to the Hoya baseball team being early “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Trojans were from Greece... or somewhere over there anyway. So we know that Trojans actually yelled “hoya!?” back in the old school days. While that's some cool info, I don't know what that says about a fight, but in the old-school days their armor didn't include cups. I wore one to play baseball, they didn't wear one to war. That's how they lost. I guess “hoya!?” actually outlasted the Trojans in real life, so what the hell, they win.

MIDWEST REGION FINAL
Clemson Tigers vs Georgetown Hoyas

I should have had the Commodores shoot the Tigers when I had the chance. But I guess in mascot fights, this region was really laid out for them. Even sissy Tony the Tiger probably could beat up a dog, and “They'reeeee GREAT!!!!” is a better exclamation than “HOYA!?”