March Madness is about to come to an end for both the NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball and men’s basketball teams. And I’m thrilled that there are still canine mascots in each of the brackets.
March Madness Schools with Canine Mascots
I just went through the original brackets of 64 teams for each of the men’s and women’s universities in the 2024 March Madness Tournament. While there were tons of feline mascots — Wildcats, Cougars, Lions — there were also plenty of canine college mascots. This includes straight-up dog breeds as well as at least one wolf. Hey, they’re cousins so I’m counting it.
Women’s Teams with a Canine Mascot
In the women’s bracket, we started with only six universities with a canine or lupine — aka wolf — mascots. They are:
- Drake University, Griff the Bulldog
- Gonzaga University, Spike the Bulldog
- NC State, Mr. Wuf (part of the Wolfpack)
- Tennessee, Smokey the Bluetick Coonhound.
- Texas A&M, Reveille the Collie
- University of Connecticut (UConn), the Huskies
Men’s Teams with a Canine Mascot
Over on the men’s bracket, of the 64 starting schools, 11 have dog or dog-adjacent mascots. They are:
- Drake University, Griff the Bulldog
- Gonzaga University, Spike the Bulldog
- James Madison University, Duke Dog
- Mississippi State, Bully the English Bulldog
- NC State, Mr. Wuf (part of the Wolfpack)
- Samford, Bulldog
- Tennessee, Smokey the Bluetick Coonhound.
- Texas A&M, Reveille the Collie
- University of Connecticut (UConn), the Huskies
- University of New Mexico, Lobo the Wolf
- Yale University, Bulldogs
Canine Mascots in the Final Four
The women play their Final Four games on Friday, April 5, and I’m thrilled that two teams with canine mascots are in that Final Four. They are the Connecticut Huskies and the NC State Wolfpack.
Over on the men’s site, they play their Final Four games on Saturday, April 6. They also have two teams with canine mascots in the Final Four. Coincidentally, they are the same two teams as the women’s games — Connecticut Huskies and the NC State Wolfpack.
It will be interesting to see if either dog mascot makes it to the National Championship game — on April 7 for the women’s teams and April 8 for the men’s teams. You can get more information about the tournament at the NCAA website.