West Regional

We’ll take Horace Greely’s advice and go west.

1 Kansas Jayhawks vs Holy Cross Crusaders
Turns out that Kansas got the nickname Jayhawks not from a bird, mythical bird or anything else.

They are named as such because they are a bunch of criminals. They just Jayhawked through taking what they wanted.

Criminals.

Who stands up and says “we want criminals to be our representation.” Then it gets seconded as a good idea.

The good news for Kansas is – while there’s some morals with the Crusaders, criminals traditionally have none.

The main opponents in the Crusades were Muslims occupying the holy land. And we’ve already detailed the 1.5 million deaths. We also know that Mike Tyson became Muslim during his jail sentence for being a criminal.

He also became loony and beatable.

The question then is, are the Jayhawks named for these criminals pre- or post-conviction?
Since they are allowed to leave the state, you have to assume that they either haven’t been caught, or it’s a juvenile offense that’s been sealed.

Kansas shanks their way into the Regional Final to face the victor of:

3 Pitt Panthers vs 2 UCLA Bruins
Now, I don’t know much about Panthers.

I know that in middle school, our mascot was a panther, but I went to the most politically correct craptacular school in the world. We weren’t even allowed to have sports teams where you had to try out. Only ones where anyone could participate. We had track and tennis.
So there’s not really any way that we can use that as a basis.

I guess we have to make this a battle between The Pink Panther and Yogi Bear.
Tale of the tape:
Endorsements: Yogi endorsed Cornflakes, Pink Panther had insulation
Edge: Yogi

Clothing: Yogi wore a hat and a necktie-collar, Pink Panther wore nothing
Edge: Yogi

Primary Adversary: Yogi had the Ranger, Pink Panther had that French/Russian dude
Edge: Pink

Side-Kick: Yogi had Boo-Boo, Pink Panther had no one.
Edge: Pink – he had enough issues with people thinking he was Mariotti based on color, didn’t need a live-in boyfriend

Inspiration: Yogi was based on Art Carney from the Honeymooners, The Pink Panther was used for the opening credits of a movie.
Edge: Yogi

Victory: Yogi

Regional Final
1 Kansas Jayhawks vs 2 UCLA Bruins
Well, there’s really only one way for this to go.

UCLA at one point used live bears as mascots. Kansas had JR Giddens.

Bears simply crush birds, of all types.

Smokey is a bear, and a nickname for cops. When we played cops and robbers the cops always won and the robbers had to eat dirt to end the game.

The Hamburglar was owned by Grimace – who’s as close to a bear as exists in playland.

Bruins in the Final 4.