A D3hoops.com reader named Mike Sullivan passed along his essential nickname guide to the NCAA Tournament, also calling it “Musings Over Lunch while avoiding going back to work.”
We know how that goes. His take follows:
In bracket order, beginning with men’s bracket.
SUNYIT Wildcats at Williams Ephs – SUNYIT soccer team more well known, the Wildcat Strikers
Rhode Island College Anchormen vs. Brandeis Judges – prefer the band to the Supreme Court
Wooster Scots at Guilford Quakers – good, the Woos crush Earlham Quakers all year long
Eastern Mennonite Royals vs. Whitworth Pirates – Whitworth higher-seed than cross-town Gonzaga
Texas-Dallas Comets at UW-Stevens Point Pointers – a little creativity problem in dairy country?
Illinois Wesleyan Titans vs. Carthage Red Men – ironic that D-III has the least politically correct nicknames, I thought these were all Liberal Artsy Fartsy colleges
Franklin & Marshall Diplomats at St. Mary’s Seahawks – F&M only team named for a cigar
Randolph-Macon Yellow Jackets vs. DeSales Bulldogs – no NCAA bubble anxiety for these Yellow Jackets
Charging on to the Women’s bracket.
Williams Ephs at Amherst Lord Jeffs – if men and women both win, Williams expands to become Eph U. Rhymes with reef, not with ref? What is it, short for Ephesians?
Gettysburg Bullets vs. Babson Beavers – Gettysburg Bullets basketball teams known informally as the Bay O Nets
Mount Union Purple Raiders at Washington Bears – MU trying to make up for pathetic 2nd place football finish
George Fox Bruins vs. Carthage Lady Reds – why not the Ladies in Red (Are Dancing With Me)
Bowdoin Polar Bears at Kean Cougars – the ultimate who’s the predator, who’s the prey matchup
Christopher Newport Captains vs. Rochester Yellowjackets – always confusing pregame coin-flips with Captains’ captains
UW Stevens Point Pointers at Illinois Wesleyan Titans – women’s teams also known as the Pointer Sisters
Marymount Saints vs. Hope Flying Dutchmen – office colleague and her husband making the 760-mile trek to cheer on the Saints, and why Flying Dutchmen? The Hope Eternal Springs is so much more marketable
OK, I’m worn out. Go Polar Bears! Go Scots! Go Saints!
UWSP is right in the middle of hunting country. Pointer dogs are hunting dogs. It works and actually IS creative.
Now, one of UWSP’s biggest rivals is the UW Eau Claire Blugold… Apparently that’s a bird, but…. I just don’t know about that!
And at least the Pointer really exists. Look at the MIAC… The Tommies, the Johnnies, the Gusties… Hmm….
In fact, the name “Pointers” predates the name “UW-Stevens Point”. Before all the state schools came under the UW umbrella, UWSP was known as Central State College and their nickname was the Pointers.
Ephs is pronounced EEFs, rhymes with Reefs, and it is short for Ephraim Williams, who left money in the 1750’s for the establishment of the school that bears his name.
His luck was not as good as that of the Ephs’ sports programs- a Colonel in the colonial militia, he was killed in action during the French and Indian war, soon after his gift.
One other piece of trivia- Amherst was founded by a group of Williams faculty and students who left because they felt the college’s location in extreme western Massachusetts was too isolated!