Who is the badassiest of them all? What team should you pick to beat out your Final Four Pool office mates? Read on for all the answers, and prepare to be awed by my eerie prescience when the games begin tomorrow!
(Weirdly, other than the two 16 seeds in the Sweet Sixteen, this might be the most realistic badass mascot bracket I’ve ever done.)
Sweet Sixteen
(4) Wake Forest Demon Deacons over the (16) Alabama State Hornets
This is where the scrappy little badass bugs’ run ends. They’re more likely to join the Demon Deacons than defeat them – such is the terrible badassity of the underworld.
(2) Michigan State Spartans over the (11) Dayton Flyers
Pilots can be pretty badass when they’re dogfighting, but at some point their badassity has limits – you can’t win a war with air power alone. If we took little babies away from their mothers at birth and raised them to be warrior pilots for their entire lives, with the entire culture existing to service those warriors, will maybe Dayton would have something. But from cradle to grave, it’s hard to get more badass than King Leonidas and his Spartans.
(5) Purdue Boilermakers over the (8) BYU Cougars
The last of the cats goes down under the screeching wheels of the mighty Purdue locomotive, hissing and steaming as it makes a puddy-tat puree out of BYU. If a huffing, puffing vat of steam barrelling down the tracks at speed wasn’t badass, those mustache twirlers of the cartoon melodramas wouldn’t throw their damsels in distress in front of them!
(7) California Golden Bears over the (11) Utah State Aggies
That badass bull took Utah State far, but at the end of the day the bear would tear it apart, nose ring and all.
(13) Portland State Vikings over the (9) Tennessee Volunteers
Vikings are just really, really hard to out-badass. No one else in the world could manage it for centuries when Odin’s people were at the top of their game.
(2) Duke Blue Devils over the (6) UCLA Bruins
The bear may live in a mighty cave, but the Devils come from a dark pit of sulfur! Not even masterful fiddle-playin’ could save the mighty beast from the City of Angels.
(16) Radford Highlanders over the (5) Illionois Fighting Illini
If someone had made a movie called, “The Illini” where maniac immortals fight each other with swords in modern parking garages and ancient castles to the rockin’ vocals of Freddie Mercury, this would be a different outcome. And even without that, I think the Scotish accent tips this one to Radford.
(6) Arizona State Sun Devils over the (10) Michigan Wolverines
The nasty yet undeniably badass critter ends its run here. Even a snarling, toothy mustelid can’t stare into the Sun and escape unscathed.
Elite Eight
(2) Michigan State Spartans over the (4) Wake Forest Demon Deacons
This is a tough call, but I give it to the Spartans in what seems like an upset. The legendary Spartans could withstand unfathomable odds. Even if the Deacons could summon enough dark powers to eventually defeat them, the Spartans would go down fighting in a most badass way. Winning in a fight isn’t always determinative, and the Deacons’ powers to summon dark powers, while badass, can’t match the badassity of the uber-disciplined Hellenistic warrior culture.
(5) Purdue Boilermakers over the (7) California Golden Bears
A bear is harder to run down than a cougar or a husky, but it still can’t stand in the way of the thundering train. All that damage from hitting animals might mean its longevity in this tournment may be coming to an end, though…
(2) Duke Blue Devils over the (13) Portland State Vikings
Even the mighty vikings had their netherworld known as Helheim, ruled by Hel, the monstrous daughter of Loki. Hell is universal, as is the fear of it. And you know something is badass if it makes the Vikings tremble.
(6) Arizona State Sun Devils over the (16) Radford Highlanders
Likewise, the Scotish clansmen can’t hold a flaming candle to the power of the solar powered desert demons.
Final Four
(2) Michigan State Spartans over the (5) Purdue Boilermakers
Even though the train would run down a Spartan if the Spartan let it, this is the first matchup where the opponent isn’t an animal without enough sense to just step aside.
(6) Arizona State Sun Devils over the (2) Duke Blue Devils
Every year, at least one demonic cage match takes place, sooner or later, depending on the bracketology. What luck it is to see these two badasses (titans of evil though they may be) duke it out (no pun intended) in the Final Four. Alas, only one can be Lord of Gehenna. In this analysis, I will make use of all those calculus classes the Navy made me take. Or maybe 8th Grade Algebra. Either way, I’m going to divide both sides by “Devil” and see what I get. What’s left is the Sun versus the color blue. And as I’ve argued from the begining, a color is incapable of being badass. But because a mass of incandescant gas (a gigantic nuclear furnace, if you will), where hydrogen turns into helium at temperatures of millions of degrees most certainly is, this one goes to ASU.
Championship Game
(2) Michigan State Spartans over the (6) Arizona State Sun Devils
At some point, the Jon Lovitz nebbishness of ASU’s sun devil logo has to cost it, and this game is it.
I’ve heard it complained that because Spartans were a fascistic society which loved war over freedom, they can’t be badass. But if the relative philosophical correctness of rival parties in politics guaranteed a victory by badassity, Republicans wouldn’t be wandering in the wilderness right now fervently praying for the health of Justice Scalia. For a warrior spirit and toughness that surpasses nearly any in history, Michigan State is sure to win it all!
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So there it is! All I ask is some kickback when my picks make you rich in your office pools. On the other hand, in the unlikely event that these aren’t as predictive as I think they will be, caveat emptor. See you next year, when the badass dance begins anew!
