Blaze Advances in Mascot Madness

03/26/2019 

On the face of it, the second round of SUNY’s Mascot Madness 2019 should really be a slam dunk for Blaze, the SUNY Cortland Red Dragon.

In voting that began at noon today (Tuesday, March 26), our ferocious, fire-spewing mythical reptile is facing off against what amounts to a whiskery ball of tree-clinging fur about the size of a cocker spaniel.

That’s right, Baxter Bearcat of Binghamton University.

Of course, when you look beyond the Google entries for binturong, the Asian mammal commonly known as a bearcat, the matchup looks a lot more challenging.

Mascot Madness is essentially an online popularity contest, based on votes. Binghamton University has more than 17,000 students. SUNY Cortland has less than 7,000. So the math is in their favor. And Binghamton is really good at math.

Blaze, however has a secret weapon — you. And your friends. And your family.

By visiting suny.edu/mascotmadness and casting frequent votes in favor of Blaze over Baxter in Round 2, the dedicated students, alumni, faculty, staff, family and friends of SUNY Cortland can beat the odds and move on to the Elite Eight. Last week, Blaze crushed Reggie the Raider, Fulton-Montgomery Community College’s pirate mascot, in the opening round of the tournament.

If this is your first experience with Mascot Madness, here’s what’s going on: For the seventh consecutive year, the 64-campus SUNY system is hosting a competition to determine its most popular college mascot. Mascots battle, tournament-style, in brackets patterned after those used for the NCAA basketball championships, using online votes of support to keep score.

Voting in the second round will continue until 3 p.m. Thursday, March 28, and SUNY allows every unique email address to vote once every 24 hours. This is probably the time to tell you that the voting process is a little cumbersome. Please stick with it — you don’t want to get on a fire-breathing Red Dragon’s bad side.

In addition to instructions for voting and a printable Mascot Madness bracket, the site offers profiles of all participating SUNY Mascots.

If Blaze overcomes the odds and beats Baxter in Round 2, Cortland’s great beast will advance through the following schedule:

• Round 3 — March 29 – April 2
• Semifinals — April 3-5
• Finals — April 9-11

So let’s demonstrate that Red Dragons not only exist outside of “Game of Thrones,” they win.