On the 16th of this month the 2017 NCAA Men’s Division 1 Basketball Tournament will begin, and I am teaming up with Allstate to kick it off. I have to admit that I am relying on the Allstate Bracket Predictor to help me crack the tournament code. I am not that well versed in college basketball, other than I know that Texas A&M is one of the trending schools right now. I am partial to my home state for any sport.
In 2016, apparently, no one had a perfect tournament bracket of the 40 million people who filled one out. I intend to break the code with Allstate’s expert analysis tool. My goal is to get my kids in on this too so we can make a fun project out of #MarchMayhem Madness. We’ll watch the games as we get closer to the final 4. Since none of us are up on our college players, I think we’ll go with choosing teams based on our favorite school mascots.
Mascots are symbols of good luck, usually portrayed by animals, people, or certain objects. It was in the late 1800s that these good luck symbols started showing up on the fields and courts of school sports to encourage fans to cheer or to heckle the opposing team. Mascotting is considered a talent and an important job these days.
College basketball games are crazy unpredictable, so why not have some fun with the mascot theme. The NCAA website has a section devoted entirely to analysis of wins based on type of mascot. You can check it out here to see just how seriously (or not so) novices like me take this stuff. I think the kids will enjoy checking out what a Reveille or a Buckeye is and learning more about the history and art of mascots. Maybe we’ll even learn a little something about college basketball in the process.
