Guest column
by Bingley

Lately my humans are all into something called the NCAA basketball playoffs, which, as I understand it, involves cats, humans, dogs, and other animals getting into contests to determine who’s the winner. Boy Slave and Girl Slave stayed up half the night doing something called “brackets,” which means pairing up the combatants to predict who will be victorious. I thought their picks were all wrong, so I decided to do my own “brackets” (click image for larger version).

Here’s how I went about it:

General rules:

1. A feline team is always superior to a non-feline team.
2. An avian team is always superior to a human team or a non-feline animal team (mmm, birds!).
3. A canine team is inferior to any other kind of team.

If there’s a matchup between two feline teams:

1. Black cats (e.g., Panthers) are superior to non-black cats (i.e., Tigers, Wildcats).
2. If they’re two types of non-black cat, pick the cat that would win in a fight.
3. If they’re two of the same type of cat (i.e., Clemson Tigers vs. Pittsburgh Tigers), actual basketball comes into play. Ask your humans for advice.

If there’s a matchup between two avian teams:

1. Pick the type of bird that tastes better.
2. If you don’t know which type of bird tastes better, because your humans don’t let you hunt enough, pick the bird that would be easier to catch.

If there’s a matchup between two human teams:

1. Pick the type of human that would most likely have cats or be nice to cats. For example, a musketeer (Xavier) might actually keep a cat, whereas a Viking (Portland State) would be more likely to wear a cat as a headdress [“Barbarians!” – Savannah]

Even with these guidelines, I had a hard time coming up with some of my picks. A few of my tougher first-round choices:

• Ohio State (Buckeyes) vs. Siena (Saints): I didn’t know what a Buckeye was, so I had Girl Slave Google it and found out it was a tree. That takes care of that. I love trees, and wish I got to climb more of them. Girl Slave was a little put out that I chose trees over humans, but she’ll get over it.
• Texas (Longhorns) vs. Minnesota (Gophers): The other cats keep telling me to put my money on the Longhorns, as beef is tasty, but I think gophers would be great fun to chase around the yard. Everybody’s got to have an upset pick.
• Illinois (Illini) vs. Western Kentucky (Hilltoppers): Eh, humans vs. humans. Illinois is a pretty flat state, I hear, so I’m going with the Hilltoppers. We cats like to be up high whenever we can.
• Washington (Huskies) vs. Mississippi State (Bulldogs): Now I know this sounds like I’m a traitor to catdom, but I actually played with bulldog-size dogs when I was a little kitten. And it was fun! [“Hisssss!” – Savannah] So I’ll pick the Bulldogs. [“Who are also the dogs slightly less likely to eat you. At least not whole.” – Savannah]

And so I wind up with an almost all-feline Elite Eight. I fully expect the Kansas Jayhawks to be pounced upon, dragged down, batted around, and finally done in by the Arizona Wildcats, leaving us with a cat-centric Final Four consisting of Arizona (Wildcats), Northern Iowa (Panthers), Pittsburgh (Panthers), and Clemson (Tigers). As black cats are the most awesome [“And don’t you forget it, zebra!”—Savannah], Panthers should battle Panthers for the title. My humans laughed out loud for some reason when I told them about that matchup, and said Pitt would totally crush Northern Iowa. Well, maybe they know something I don’t. I’m going to predict the Pittsburgh Panthers will be preening at the top of the heap, and then settling down for a nice cozy postseason nap.

BratCat-ologists (from left) Gypsy, Bingley, and Savannah hard at work.