College basketball team nickname bracket: Day 3 of second-round voting is open
We continue with Round 2 of the college basketball team nickname bracket. If you missed them, earlier this week we opened up the Friendly & Funny Region and the Strange & Quirky. Now it's time for the Strong & Virtuous. (Click here for a full-size version of the updated bracket.)
There were some generally closer results in this region but once again, there was just a lone upset. A little bigger than a 9 seed this time — the No. 12 seed Minutemen took down the No. 5 Paladins. Here were the results.
| Matchup | Winner | Vote % |
| 1 Leathernecks vs. 16 Cornhuskers | Leathernecks | 85 |
| 9 Quakers vs. 8 Friars | Friars | 56 |
| 5 Paladins vs. 12 Minutemen | Minutemen | 53 |
| 13 Norse vs. 4 Demon Deacons | Demon Deacons | 59 |
| 3 Boilermakers vs. 14 Commodores | Boilermakers | 59 |
| 11 Aztecs vs. 6 Gauchos | Gauchos | 54 |
| 7 Rainbow Warriors vs. 10 Matadors | Rainbow Warriors | 65 |
| 15 Lancers vs. 2 Lumberjacks | Lumberjacks | 70 |
On to the next. Voting is now open for the second round and will continue through Sunday. Voting for the final region will open Thursday.
No. 1 Leathernecks vs. No. 8 Friars
The Summit League might have the best nickname game of any conference, boasting two No. 1 seeds and a No. 4 in this tournament. The Leathernecks is the proud moniker of Western Illinois. It's the only non-military school in the country with a military-inspired nickname — "leathernecks" is a slang term for a U.S. Marine.
Friars are the robe-wearing religious devotees to the goodwill of the poor honored via the Providence nickname. They'll have their work cut out for them against the Western Illinois juggernaut.
No. 12 Minutemen vs. No. 4 Demon Deacons
If you've ever had an American history class, you know the Revolutionary War legacy of the Minutemen, a fitting match for the athletic teams at UMass.
Look out for a deep run here from the Demon Deacons. Wake Forest's popular, alliterative nickname was first coined — as many of these were — by a sportswriter, way back in 1922. Previously just the Deacons, Wake pulled off a big win over the rival Duke Blue Devils, prompting the new nickname. It stuck.
No. 3 Boilermakers vs. No. 6 Gauchos
Purdue has a history as a working-class school, hence a nickname honoring the craftsmen who toil over building boilers, furnaces and the like.
UC Santa Barbara used to be another school that used "Roadrunners" as a nickname before changing to the Gauchos in 1936. The origin story is interesting. The change was brought on by female students, who were "inspired by Douglas Fairbanks’s performance in the 1927 film The Gaucho." Fair. He was a pretty good-looking dude.
No. 7 Rainbow Warriors vs. No. 2 Lumberjacks
The story goes that a rainbow appeared over the Hawai'i football field during a big upset win in 1923, prompting the adoption of the name "Rainbows." Warriors started sneaking into usage later. Some teams went by one or the other, some used "Rainbow Warriors." In 2013, athletic director Ben Jay decided to unify all teams under Rainbow Warriors. A wise choice. This is a definite sleeper pick.
Few names have quite the ring to them that graces Lumberjacks. Both Stephen F. Austin and Northern Arizona employ it, honoring the plaid-wearing muscle men who chop down trees.
