Ultimate Mascot Madness Third Round

Click here for an Introduction and Play-In Round results. Click here for First Round results. Click here for Second Round results.

South Region

#9 Miami Hurricanes over #37 Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils - Where have the Delta Devils succeeded where their demonic brethren have failed? Their apparent ability to shoot fire at people. But that fire does precious little against driving storms and 100+ mile per hour winds.
#5 Furman Paladins over #20 Vanderbilt Commodores - I feel like I don’t have to explain this, but as a reminder a Paladin is a knight on a horse and a Commodore is a dude with a sword inspired by a business magnate.
#19 UAB Blazers over #6 Tennessee Volunteers - “Blaze the Mascot Dragon / Reps UAB / And barbecued the Volunteer from a state called Tennessee”
#31 Longwood Lancers over #10 North Carolina Tar Heels - Not a great couple of games for human mascots that also represent their respective state’s nickname.

East Region

#34 Canisius Golden Griffins over #24 Army Black Knights - This one is a toss-up. I found a website that had some medieval art depicting encounters between Knights and Griffins. Obviously these are all fictional, but some depicted knights slaying griffins because you’re not going to beef up your legend by showing your butt getting kicked by an eagle-lion. But there was one image of a griffin carrying a knight and its horse in its talons to feed the two to its baby griffins. Golden Griffins get the win.
#21 Marshall Thundering Herd over #4 Penn State Nittany Lions - Per Mascot Madness rules we are talking about one mountain lion verses an entire herd of buffalo.
#6 Hofstra Pride over #3 Rutgers Scarlet Knights - Pride of lions versus a single knight; one wearing scarlet which is not the most stealthy color.
#26 LIU Sharks over #15 UMass Minutemen - I know what you’re thinking: the minutemen has a gun. But a Revolutionary War-era musket would not shoot well into the water and take a heck of a long time to reload. Suddenly we’re talking man versus shark and shark wins.

Midwest Region

#33 Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons over #9 Oklahoma Sooners - Oklahoma: Where the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. What, that’s not corn? It’s an angry mastodon! RUN!
#29 Oakland Golden Grizzlies over #12 Indiana Hoosiers - State nickname mascots falling left and right.
#14 Tulsa Golden Hurricane over #22 Northern Kentucky Norse - It’s almost official…
#26 Iowa State Cyclones over #15 Indiana State Sycamores - …now it’s official. Sweet Sixteen Showdown: Golden Hurricane versus Cyclone. Give it up for the Sycamores, though. It’s a tree and it got all the way to the Third Round. By the way, I looked up which trees could withstand the damage of high winds and Sycamores were not among those trees. Perhaps Indiana State should consider being the Flowering Dogwoods or Southern Magnolias. The latter is odd for Indiana, Mascot Madness knows, but do they want to win or not?

West Region

#25 Hawaii Rainbow Warriors over #33 New Orleans Privateers - Here’s my theory. A warrior is hypothetically going to be better trained and have a better head on his shoulder than a pirate.
#12 California Golden Bears over #13 Montana Grizzlies - Bear vs. Bear. Traditionally, Mascot Madness has held that when two similarly mascoted teams face off, but one has the moniker “Golden” that the golden mascot gets the win. It’s a tie goes to the runner type of thing. But we want to run a transparent organization and not just assume the ways of the past. So there’s apparently a Legend of the Golden Bear in the Midwest about a bear that raided towns in Kansas and ate the animals and livestock. Hunting parties were gathered, but they never caught the Golden Bear. This is not the Golden Bear that the California mascot was named for (that was just because California is the Golden State), but I thought you deserved a little more justification.
#19 UC Santa Barbara Gauchos over #27 UTRGV Vaqueros - So how did Mascot Madness make the call on this seeming deadlock. Like much of what we do here, it came down to a Wikipedia article. “Gauchos became greatly admired and renowned in legends, folklore, and literature and became an importation part of their regional cultural tradition…Because historical gauchos were reputed to be brave, if unruly, the word is also applied metaphorically to mean ‘Noble, brave and generous,’ but also ‘One who is skillful in subtle tricks, crafty.’”
#2 San Diego State Aztecs over #26 San Diego State Toreros - I don’t really have anything to add to this result other than Mascot Madness really enjoyed visiting San Diego and hopes to get to go there again one day.

Check back tomorrow for the Sweet Sixteen!