There are a lot of different ways to fill out your NCAA bracket, but not many as fun as picking based on each school’s mascot’s fighting skills.
It may be a frowned upon approach in so-called “Bracketology,” but it’s also a lot of fun: Picking your bracket based on the mascot that would win in a fight.
Something used by people who don’t watch, or even want to watch, college basketball, can also be a fun way to make a bracket for even the most experienced bracketeer.
From Wildcats (SO many wildcats) to a giant orange, to a buckeye, to a racer, this year’s March Madness bracket is FULL of interesting mascots that would make a full-blown mascot battle royale an incredibly fun time. For our purposes, we’re going to stick to the things like the “Kentucky Wildcats” since not every school has an official mascot.
My ranking system for these matchups is based not on school prestige, or who is the best at bouncing on trampolines to dunk a basketball (or, laughably, failing at it). We’re also not concerned with the originality of the mascots in question, whether there are 50,000 Wildcats (which, basically there are), or one “Norse,” originality and quality don’t really play a part in this one.
All we’re worried about is settling this in the ways of old. No, not an old western shootout (although, I’m pretty sure John Wayne would prefer it that way), but in bare-handed fisticuffs. We’re just worried about which mascot would win in a hand-to-hand (claw-to-claw?) fight, were the NCAA Tournament to be settled this way thanks to some weird form of college athlete hiatus.
That being said, let’s get into the fun, and answer the question: If you’re building your bracket based off of which team’s mascot would win in a fight, who raises the trophy at the end?