CavMan comes in #26 on NCAAT top mascots list

You know it’s officially #MarchMadness when you start getting definitive lists ranking all 68 NCAA tournament mascots. Well, here we are. Yesterday, USA Today’s “For the Win” gave us just that.

CavMan, our illustrious hero, ranks #26 on the list, just ahead of Xavier’s musketeer. The author, Charles Curtis, is hoping for a fight between the two mustachioed, hat-wearing swashbucklers. My money is on CavMan. He’s legit.

The Maryland mascot, Testudo the Terrapin, came in dead last. Says Curtis, “Okay, look. Testudo is a very good mascot. But I’m sorry: A turtle is the least threatening creature.”

Just two spots ahead of Testudo? That’ll be the Virginia Tech Hokie, holding down the basement with our associates from College Park.

Curtis’s reasoning is pretty simple. “Too hokey.”

LOL.

The Hoos are understandably ahead of Purdue’s terrifying boilermaker, Oklahoma State’s five-o-clock shadow wearing Pistol Pete, and the utterly nightmare inducing Providence Friar. I do think the West Virginia Mountaineer, played by a real dude with a (hopefully) fake musket, was robbed coming in at #46.

Victor E. Viking, the main man from Northern Kentucky took the top spot, just ahead of #16 seed New Orleans (the Privateers!). The Shockers of Wichita State round out the top three, but they’d make my top two if the list was “most likely to haunt my dreams” (behind Providence, duh).

Virginia - and CavMan - will kick off the NCAA tournament Thursday at 12:40 against UNC-W (whose Seahawks came in at #44).