African Animals Bracket

Hey there bracket fans!!!! Thanks for checking in again on our newest bracket!

This week we bring you the African Animals bracket! Most people would believe that Africa has the coolest animals anywhere on this wonderful planet. We thought it would be a great idea to decide which of those animals were our favorites and have some match ups. This is not who we think would win in a fight, but perhaps we will do that bracket some other time. Instead, we are just picking our favorites. Which ones we enjoy seeing the most. Our resident animal expert was ready to take on the challenge and asked for this bracket to happen early.

Without further adu, here is our African Animals Bracket.

We again decided to have themed sections and selected animals that are predominantly in Africa. We decided to go with a generic rhino instead of separating them into white rhino vs. black rhino. Additionally, I just wrote Elephant, but we are talking about an African Elephant. I focused on animals that Eli had seen as well, so that he could participate. A good portion of these can be found on the safari at Animal Kingdom. Originally, I had included King Cobra, but after additional research I saw that they were native to Asia, not Africa. So I redid the bracket and included a spitting cobra which changed the seeding a bit.

The bracket was separated by Flashy animals, Hidden Gems, Stunning Animals, and animals with lots of Teeth. The goal was to separate out rhinos, elephants, and lions for everyone and keep themed sections. That goal worked and so do the sections. Hidden gems are animals that are good at hiding and/or rarely seen in the wild. Flashy animals are animals that catch your eye because they have some crazy trait. A zebra's stripes, a giraffe's spots, something that grabs your attention. Stunning animals are animals that are just absolutely majestic. They just take your breath away. That's the perfect way to describe an elephant in my opinion. Finally, the teeth section is where you get your big predators and other animals with lots of big, scary teeth.

As always, we start with Mr. Brackets, Noland Jr.

The lion was always Noland's #2 animal behind only the tiger. That changed recently when we saw a cheetah run at Busch Gardens. Speed may kill, but it also sells little kids. Seeing the blazing speed of the cheetah was enough to make it pass the lion for Jr. That speed was beyond impressive. I hope everyone one day gets to experience it. The lion is now his #3 animal overall and #2 from Africa.

He really likes rhinos as well and likes them more because they are my favorite. There is a lemur in Zoboomafoo, which is one of his favorite shows period. That lemur helps move all lemurs into the Elite 8 for Noland Jr. Rounding out the top 8 were the Nile Monitor, the honey badger, pangolin, and leopard.

The hardest decision in the bracket according to him was whether to pick a bongo or an addax. He really liked seeing both on the safari and they both have sweet horns. Bongo was the ultimate choice because that animal is more colorful. Another tough one was honey badger or meerkat because there is a meerkat and a honey badger in the lion guard. We saw honey badgers at the Naples Zoo and that convinced him that it is the superior animal, but he really likes looking at meerkats.

There were a few surprises in his bracket. I was shocked that he took a cape vulture over a Thomson's Gazelle and then over giraffes as well. Also a hippo losing to a waterbuck? Really, don't know where that one came from. It seems like Nile Monitor making it all the way to the Elite 8 is an upset, but not with my boys. They love big lizards and this monitor is very similar to the Komodo Dragon. What a cool animal. He might not be the only one to have that upset.

Now, let's look at our sweet Eli's bracket

 We knew two things going into Eli's bracket. It was going to be giraffe vs. hippo in the final and giraffe would win. He just loves giraffes so much. They have been his favorite animal for as long as I can remember. It is the first animal he said the name of and one of his first words period. Absolutely loves giraffes. Lately, he has really started enjoying hippos too.

His final four rounded out with jackal and cheetah. One was obvious, the cheetah. Just like Noland, he saw that Cheetah run and was so amazed by its blazing speed. After that, he has asked to go back daily. He loves the cheetah run. Heck, this boy loves the Cheetah Hunt coaster that he is far too little to ride. Just watching it go by is enough for Eli. Loves cheetahs. Jackal came out of nowhere though. Its like we were doing this bracket and all of a sudden he decided he loves jackals. We have never seen one in person, but there is a jackal in the Lion Guard, so maybe that is why. He did have mandrills in the Elite 8 solely because that is what Rafiki is.

Zebras are probably his 4th favorite animal from Africa, but they went up against giraffes in the Sweet 16. Nothing was beating that giraffe.

We had a celebrity guest picker in our house while we were filling these out in my Mother in Law. We will share her bracket next.

Noland calls his grandmas by their hair color so this is the bracket for his red-hair grandma. Notice the RH grandma at the top of this bracket. He was beyond excited that his grandma wanted to do a bracket as well. She chose the lion as her top animal which is what I imagine most people would. However, she was the only one to do so in our brackets. Lions made the finals several times, but only won with red hair grandma.

I thought Noland loved lemurs until I saw his grandma's bracket. She had them all the way to the finals. She had two completely opposite things in her finals and her final four. Half of her final four was humongous with lions and elephants. The other half are super tiny in bushbabies and lemurs. Just goes to show that the animals we love come in all shapes and sizes.

After seeing what Jenna's mom picked, let's check in on what the boys' mom picked.

Jenna had the most predictable bracket if you know us I believe. It went according to chalk with all 4 1 seeds making it and everyone knew that would be her final four. We also knew that elephant would be the ultimate champion for her. She really loves all of those four animals, but especially the elephant. Nothing she selected surprised me in the least and I could have predicted her entire bracket for you. Well, maybe Klipspringer over Honey Badger was a bit of a surprise, but not really.

Jenna was the only one of us to select all four 1 seeds for the final. She was the only one to have Gorillas in the Final Four. She was also the only one to write stork when choosing between the Maribou and the Shoebill Stork. I guess she just didn't want to choose.

Finally, here is my bracket

Rhinos are my favorite animal, but after seeing that cheetah run i questioned it for a minute. Seriously, it was amazing!! Rhinos are still the coolest though. I don't know what it is about rhinos, but I just absolutely love them. They are just so fun to look at and impressive when they charge. Fun fact a group of rhinos is actually called a charge of rhinos.

I struggles the most with the teeth bracket. I kept going back and forth with several matchups. I wanted to pick the lion, especially after seeing it eat. Then I wanted to pick the leopard because of its pure power while still being graceful. Ultimately, I went with Hyena because when I see Hyenas I get more excited than when I see lions or leopards. Why that is I do not know, but I enjoy them. They are very neat and I saw them laugh on a night safari at Animal Kingdom. That is still one of my favorite experiences ever.

My toughest selection in the bracket was honey badger over hippo. That was a really tough one. I was able to pick honey badger because when I finally saw one at Naples Zoo it was probably the most excited I was to see an animal. Well, most excited other than when I get to see my kid's reactions. Picking honey badger over hippo was just tough because hippos are also in my top 5. They are so amazing to look at and I just wasn't sure. In fact I am still not sure. It's more even than anything with those two. However, I was more excited to see a honey badger. Also Bunga is a honey badger and Beshte is a hippo and Bunga is cooler than Beshte.

Finally, I wanted to say that the elephant was almost knocked out early because of the Nile Monitor and also the shoebill stork. How the shoebill stork changes his eyes is so cool and the monitor is just a neat animal.

So who is the ultimate winner for the family?

So the top 5 were
1. Lion (20 spaces)
T-2. Cheetah/Rhino tie (19 spaces)
T-4. Giraffe/Honey Badger tie (15 spaces)

Making the lion not only the king of the jungle, but the king of our brackets.

That feeding was pretty awesome!!!
Photo from Catty Shack Ranch in Jacksonville, FL

What did you think of our brackets?
Want to fill one out yourself?
Would you pick differently?
Got any brackets you want us to make?
Leave us a comment and let us know....

Next up for you is our College Baseball Tournament bracket that starts the day of our bracket being released. Enjoy Omaha!!!!

Have a great week!

-Noland

Coolest Superhero Bracket

Noland Jr. loves superheroes. His two biggest passions outside of his family and God are superheroes and animals. You will see a lot of superhero brackets and a lot of animal brackets on this page. He really wanted to do a superhero bracket after his Disney movie bracket. This is the one he has enjoyed doing the most. What made it more fun is that when I posted this one to Facebook, we got a lot of participation on it. Please enjoy our coolest Superhero bracket!!!!!

As you can tell, this bracket has themed groups. You will notice that about all of these brackets. They are all separated by themes or eras. The themes for this bracket were Smart Ass Heroes, with Spider-Man as the favorite and #1 seed, Outer-space heroes with Thor as the #1 seed, Mutants with Captain America as the #1 seed, and rich heroes with Batman as the #1 seed. There were a few stretches in each region, but I put them in the region I thought they fit the best. Characters like Star-Lord could have fit in multiple regions, but he is a smart ass through and through. Captain America isn't technically a mutant, but he did have the Super Soldier serum which pretty much made him a mutant. My main goal with the bracket theme was to put the 3 main Avengers in separate brackets (Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America and Spidey in the 4th. I tried to line them up by who most people would pick, but also seperate Jr.'s favorites as much as possible.

The Outer Space bracket was the weakest in my opinion, but holds enough value with the Guardians, Superman, and Thor. Also when Captain Marvel and Silver Surfer really get introduced, this region will look much stronger, if not be the strongest region of all.

Please note that this bracket is for the coolest superhero. We all picked our favorites, not who would win in a fight. If it was who would win in a fight the seeds would be changed and the winner should be unanimous. You just can't beat Silver Surfer in a fight. The surfer has unlimited power and no real weaknesses. It's kind of pointless to do a bracket like that, so we just picked our favorites and encourage you to do the same.

So here is Noland's bracket which will not come as any surprise to those that know him....

Anything with Spider-Man is unbeatable for this child currently. It was no doubt that Spidey would win and Captain America is his clear #2. Ant-Man is probably his 3rd favorite, but he faced Spidey in the Sweet 16. We forgot to write in Black Panther over War Machine for him, I didn't realize that until I already posted it. I figured Black Panther was going all the way to his Final Four, but he had Wasp take him out. Like I said he is a big Ant-Man fan and has recently started liking Wasp too. Wasp has pretty much the same powers as Ant-Man and is a great ally to him so it makes sense.

You will notice that Junior has a very strong lean towards team Cap. We all do actually. In fact, Iron Man is out in the 1st round for Noland despite him being too young for the X-Men's heyday. Angel still knocks out Iron Man for him. He had Cyclops and Superman going further than everyone else in our family. He's a big Cyclops fan after the family Universal trip. Cyclops spent a lot of quality time with him.

That whole Outer Space bracket was very surprising for me in his selections. Up until this bracket, he was Groot everything. With his selections though, he picked Superman over Groot. None of us are Superman fans so it shocked me when Superman made it to the Top 8. I thought for sure it would be Groot or Rocket in the Final Four. Seeing Thor was a bit of a shock as this was before Infinity War. He has grown to love Thor though. It is very recent, but cool. Thor is an awesome hero as Infinity War proved. I was also shocked that he had Silver Surfer losing to Captain Marvel. This guy always picks male characters over females and he loves Silver Surfer. Captain Marvel is cool though and I am glad he likes her. I was just a tad surprised.

Here is our boy that is always full of surprises...

Eli picked Batman to win it all. Ever since Lego Batman, Eli has been on a Batman kick. Batman says in that movie "Iron Man Sucks" so that also leads to another first round exit for Iron Man. Lego Batman speaks the truth according to my boys. While he hates Iron Man, he loves his best buddy, War Machine. He loves the character and he loves saying War Machine. War Machine makes the top 8, but Iron Man out round 1. Only Eli can do things like that.

Eli had Luke Cage aka Powerman making it all the way to the Finals. He really enjoys saying Powerman and loved Luke Cage on the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. It's cool to see that watching the same show as Noland, he can develop a completely different set of favorite heroes. He also had Drax going to the Final Four. Loving the Guardians like all of us, but picking different favorites. Captain Marvel he decided was fun to say and even not knowing the character, he had her going to the Elite 8. There he had her losing to Drax though.

I wouldn't say he loves Nick Fury, but he did pick him to the Sweet 16. He just didn't really know the other characters and thought saying Fury was cool. My biggest shock was him saying Gambit over Hulk. Must have just enjoyed saying Gambit. I love that character, but Hulk was his favorite until Lego Batman came along. I am not surprised by Mikey and Raphael dominating that bracket for him though. He has started to loved the Ninja Turtles.

Next up, Princess Jenna

As always, Jenna has the extra special pictures and explanations. She went with the family star hero Captain America. We should note though that this was before Infinity War and with only one viewing of Ragnarok. Her favorite at this point is probably Thor and Thor only made it to the Elite 8. Thor is pretty spectacular, but faced a surprisingly tough road to the Final 4.

Want to know something kind of surprising? Jenna is the only person to pick Iron Man in the Round 1 matchup. Not only that, but she also had Iron Man out in the 2nd round. Poor Iron Man. Lego Batman and being against team Cap really lowered his ranking in our family.

Other than that, Jenna pretty much followed our bracket. It was very similar to the rest of the family. There was a strong Guardians of the Galaxy influence with Star-Lord and Groot in the Final Four. The Lego Batman factor was involved in the picks and she loves Cap like the rest of us. The only other one where she picked different from the majority was Iron Fist to the Elite 8. I also love Iron Fist, but couldn't advance him as far.

Now its my turn....

I probably had the most different bracket other than Captain winning. I had several choices that were different from my family, but I also probably know the most heroes. Captain is clearly my favorite and has been for years, but there were some really tough choices. I did not design the bracket so my favorites could get through. That being said, it was cool that Daredevil was able to get into my final as my second favorite hero. Tough to beat the blind superhero from Hell's Kitchen.

I had some tough choices with Black Panther over Iron Fist and Black Panther over Batman. They are all Top 10 heroes to me and I'd rank them about the same. I chose Black Panther because I think he's just a bit cooler. Groot over Rocket was also an incredibly tough choice. After watching Infinity War I probably would go with Rocket over Groot actually, but I really love Groot. Silver Surfer over Thor would be seen as an upset, but I really like Silver Surfer. With that said, after Infinity War, I am liking Thor a lot better and he'd probably do better if I redid this bracket. I probably would have Spider-Man beating Punisher in an updated bracket, but Punisher used to be a Top 5 hero for me. Tom Holland is adding a lot of value to Spidey for me. That and my son is obsessed so it's causing me to like the hero more. My toughest choice was Falcon over Star Lord at the time. After Infinity War, I am thrilled with my decision. Why Peter why?

A couple people were hurt massively by where they were on the bracket. I like Hawkeye a lot better than some of the people in my Sweet 16, but he was up against Falcon and Falcon is in my Top 5. Falcon gets knocked out early though because he goes against my number 2 in the Sweet 16. The Thing also is a really amazing hero, but he was up against my #2 hero Daredevil. Namor could have won a few matchups, but he's not beating Batman. Yondu has a lot to offer as a character, but he is not beating Rocket. Michalangelo is by far the best ninja turtle, but he's not beating Cap. The leader of the ninja turtles isn't beating my favorite from the X-Men either. Doctor Strange has super cool powers, but not as cool as Ant-Man. Wasp has those same cool powers, but had to go against the Dark Knight.

This is my favorite bracket to date. I really love it. And I love that Captain America was so well represented.
#TeamCap

What did you think about these brackets?
What would you change?
What do you want to see us bracket in the future?
Leave a comment to let us know!

-Noland

Here are bonus brackets left for us on Facebook!

My friend Tyler Colan decided to be awesome and do his own bracket for us as well.

Tyler went above and beyond and even left a note. He stated that his top 4 were all on the right side of the bracket so his Final Four isn't a true Final Four. Jean Gray was knocked out in the Sweet 16 despite being his number 3 hero. Tyler wished it was seeded a little differently for this reason. He did not like the outer space section, but ultimately picked Thor to win that section. Like the rest of us, he was not a big fan of Superman or Supergirl. He's more of a Marvel guy then DC just like us as well. The exception to Marvel v. DC for him like the Robinsons is Batman. The Dark Knight is the one DC character that can compete with Marvel's greatness. He won Tyler's bracket for Batman's 2nd win so far in this bracket (Eli was the 1st). In his note section Tyler discusses this further and why DC is not great, but Batman is the best.

His bracket would look much different if we split up the X-Men more. Tyler loves the X-Men and they would make up at least half his Final 4 if it were split up accordingly. Maybe we will have to do an all X-Men bracket at some point when the boys get into it more?

My sister also created a superhero bracket

Her bracket again looks similar to the rest of us. Captain America won for her as well. It only took her 27 years of me pushing her into it for her to finally admit Cap was the best. This is Cap's 3rd win out of 6. He also was the runner up in Noland Jr.'s bracket. Captain America is the clear favorite so far. This could change if other people put input in. He is just has so much integrity and he is such a great guy.

I honestly thought she would pick Thor and might have if we did these after Infinity War came out. How cool was Thor in that movie? Thor still made the final though and joined Captain America, Batman, and Star-Lord in the Final 4.

She originally went with Luke Cage, but changed it to Doctor Strange. We are all liking Doctor Strange more by the day. He might be one that pops up again on another bracket in the future.

Surprisingly, the Ninja Turtles did awful with my sister. None advanced past the second round and all, but Michelangelo were out in the 1st round.

After all 6 brackets, here were our top 5 heroes!!!
T-3. Thor/ Groot/ Spider-Man (18 spots)
2. Batman (23 spots)
And #1 by a substantial margin
1. Captain America (26 spots)

Join us in 5 more days for our African Animals brackets!!!!

Until next time my fellow Superhero lovers!!!

Women's College World Series Bracket

So this was supposed to be where we showed you our superhero bracket, but....
The NCAA released their Women's College World Series brackets and I wanted to show you ours before the games started later today!!!!
That way you could see our picks before and not think we changed them. Not that you would, but for confirmation purposes here you go...

First, the blank bracket

As you will see below, we filled out a less descriptive bracket straight from the NCAA, but this is how the tournament will actually play out. On our brackets , it basically stops at 8 and then has you write the finish, but the space to write out 1-8 (when the tournament is re-seeded) is so small that it is difficult to see. Eli didn't want me to write in that space either. He just wanted to pick a winner. Noland Jr. thought wanted everything filled out like always. This bracket gives you a good idea of how the tournament works if you haven't seen the College World Series on either the men's or women's side.

Here are some early notes about the actual bracket. 13/14 SEC teams (Vanderbilt, the one that didn't, isnt a softball participating member) made the NCAA tournament in a field of 64. The Pac 12 had 7 teams invited. 14 of the 16 regionals are hosted by either an SEC or a Pac 12 school. Those that weren't a member of the Pac 12 or SEC hosting a regional are ACC Champion Florida State (6 seed) and Big 12 champion Oklahoma (4 seed). The deck clearly seems to be stacked against these conferences. The ACC especially only got 2 teams in the tournament.
Are you telling me the SEC is that much better in softball that they got 13 teams in to the ACC's 2?
The SEC has teams barely over .500 making the tournament. It just seems suspect to me. For example Pittsburgh is 33-18 and played against several tournament teams, beating several, winning the ACC Coastal, while last place Missouri at 28-27 makes the field. Having the entire conference over .500 is impressive, but just hard to believe that they are all deserving of a bid. 13/64 is 20% of the field. Just seems like stacking the deck against the other conferences to try to lock up a championship. I don't approve of this decision by the NCAA, but still wanted to fill out the bracket....

Then my picks first this time

Possibly because I was so upset with committee letting all 13 SEC teams in, I only have one SEC team advancing to the 8 team College World Series. That SEC team, the Florida Gators, are the team I like the least. However, it is difficult for me to see them losing until Oklahoma City. That being said, I do believe that they will finish last in Oklahoma City once they get there regardless of the other teams.

If I am correct the Final 8 will include #1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #8 and two teams not nationally ranked advancing. I have all the top 8 teams advancing to the Final 8 with the exception of #5 Washington and #7 Georgia. It would have been easy to select both though and most would.

That would make 1, 4, 6 w/ one unranked team on on side with 2, 3, 8 and the other unranked team on the other side. Knowing that format I had the 6th seed Florida state beating the 3rd seeded UCLA in the College World Series final. If it broke down this way, the 3 strongest teams in my opinion would be on the same side of the bracket with FSU, Oklahoma, and the powerhouse that is Oregon. UCLA and Florida are quite good though and could have a showdown on the other side. Watch out for Arizona State though, they are sneaky good. I actually have them as the 3rd place finisher in this tournament. Would not be surprised to see them win it all.

Jenna did not want to do this bracket as she was busy with a project for her shop. She said she would pick the Seminoles though. So let's move right along to Eli's bracket...

Eli Thomas had some chalk and some not so much chalk. He selected 3 SEC teams to make the College World Series. Those three were Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee. They were three different teams then the ones I had. I think he could be right with those picks though as all got good draws. I had Middle Tennessee winning where he has Bama. Eli was rather confident that Alabama would win a lot and said they would finish in 2nd. He stuck with the Seminoles as the champs though because this is a Seminoles household and the Seminoles have an incredibly strong team!!!!

Eli said yay Seminoles!!!

And the champ is last with Noland Jr.'s picks.

Noland Jr. obviously picked upset after upset in this tournament. He only has one nationally ranked seed making it to Oklahoma City. That team he picked was the mighty Seminoles who Noland thinks will win the whole tournament. How amazing would this final 8 be with no SEC teams? How awesome would it be if this chaos picked by a 5 year old actually cam true?

While I don't think this chaos will hold true, it would be truly epic. Can you imagine an Oklahoma City field of Middle Tennessee, Wichita State, Baylor, Northwestern, FSU, Texas State, New Mexico State, and Drake. The people wouldn't know which underdog to root for. It would be truly WONDERFUL! Man, I really hope this happens. This would be my favorite bracket of all-time if it actually came true.

Only one thing really matters about this bracket though above all else. We all picked the Seminoles. We all want the Seminoles to win. We all love the Seminoles!
Let's go Noles!!!!

Who are you picking in Oklahoma City (where the Women's College World Series is held?
What do you think of the bracket?
What do you think of our picks?
Will you watch on ESPN?
Leave us a comment and let us know!
Now join us in 5 days for our Coolest Superhero Bracket

- Noland

Disney Movie Madness

I am sure you saw the disney movie bracket that went viral during March Madness. If you have not seen it yet, here it is...

The bracket is awesome and fun. There is one problem with this bracket though. It does not include some of the best movies of all-time on the Disney side. It does not include any movies before the Disney Renaissance. It was a successful time period for Disney, but they made movies before then. They made so many wonderful classic movies.
While I enjoyed that little bracket I set out to create my own bracket that included the classics.
My improved bracket isn't as pretty, but it gets the job done.

I decided to separate the bracket by eras. This was done so more movies could be included. It also seemed foolish to seperate it into Disney v. Pixar because Pixar has less than 20 movies. There were a few choices that had to be made on what to leave out in order to separate it by eras. A lot of classics meant that The Rescuers was left out. However, The Rescuers Down Under was included with the Disney Renaissance. A lot of wonderful movies got included now that were left out before. The seeding was done by what I think the more popular movies are at this time. Snow White got a automatic pass to a #1 seed because its the original movie. #Respect

Below are our filled out brackets with Noland Jr. 1st.....

The Lion King was the ultimate champion for Noland Jr. and it has been his favorite movie for quite some time. He is also really into the Cars movies as you can see. Cars and Cars 3 both made it into his Final Four and Jr. had those movies going further than any of us did. He said that the toughest decision of his bracket was The Jungle Book or the original Cars. His most surprising choice to us was that he picked Inside Out over Coco. We all loved Coco and I had it going much further than he did. Junior also had the original Toy Story out super early which was odd to me.
His reasoning was "Buzz is mean to Woody in that one." 5 year olds and how they rationalize things......

My bracket is next

The Jungle Book is my all-time favorite Disney movie. My favorite being left off the original bracket was my biggest inspiration for creating the bracket as I did. It is always a tough choice for me between Lion King and Jungle Book as I consider them 1a and 1b of Disney movies instead of 1 and 2. That being said, Jungle Book does have a slight edge. My #3 movie is actually Pinocchio, but that movie couldn't make the Final Four because it had to be knocked out by Jungle Book in the Disney Classics section of the bracket. As I told you with Jr.'s bracket, Coco got over big with my family and made it into my Final Four. I'm the only one that had it going as far as I did, but I just loved this family-oriented Disney movie. Coco is my favorite Pixar movie of them all, even beating out Toy Story. That one is a close call though.

You will probably notice a few wins that would be considered upsets in my bracket. I talked about how we respect Snow White and all agree it should be a one seed. Then both Jr. and I have The Fox and the Hound upsetting Snow White. While we respect the movie and that it started it all, it is nowhere near the favorite of any of us. It gets knocked out by a superior movie in our book. Just like Noland I move Dumbo (a top 10 Disney movie) into my Sweet 16. I had Princess and the Frog and Wreck It-Ralph both going to the Elite 8 and farther than most would have them. They are both terrific movies that I absolutely loved. Finally, my toughest decision for the bracket was Brother Bear over Finding Nemo. The story and characters of Nemo are timeless and I adore the movie. That being said, you can see I went Brother Bear. To me, Brother Bear, is the most underrated Disney movie. It is a true classic and a Top 5 movie of Disney. Finding Nemo is top 10, but not top 5 to me. I felt like I should go Finding Nemo, but Brother Bear I enjoy more. I put Brother Bear in my Final Four.

It's Eli's turn







Let's start with the obvious here. What is that scratched out at the top of Eli's page? Did we actually have to write his name more than once?

Of course, we didn't mess up intentionally. Noland Jr. tried to write his brother's name and messed up so we wanted to make sure it was correct before we posted. We thought about starting fresh, but the whole save the environment thing + it shows we are not perfect.

Anyways, onto the bracket. Eli is obsessed with The Jungle Book, so that was the obvious winner before we even started. The only question was how he would fill out the rest of the bracket. His favorite non- Jungle Book character is Baymax, so it makes sense that Big Hero 6 would make it all the way to the final. He also really likes Goofy and he had A Goofy Movie going much further than any of us did. His biggest change from the group is that he is the only one of us who picked Monsters Inc. over Brother Bear. Eli loves Monsters Inc. he likes it a lot better than the rest of us. He thinks Mike and Sulley are so funny and laughs whenever he sees them. All of us had this movie losing the 1st round, but Eli took it all the way to the Final Four. We enjoy the movie a lot more when Eli is around! I'm curious how far he would have taken Monsters University if it didn't have to go up against Big Hero 6.

Now, the wonderful Jenna

Jenna's is clearly the prettiest bracket. She has such better handwriting than I do and wrote out some nice reasons for her picks. You can tell The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was her #1 choice of all Disney movies. She selected this because it is such a nice movie of by far her favorite character. This 1977 classic was far better than the 2011 version which lost in an opening round matchup to Frozen. The original has really stood the test of time and cemented Pooh as a classic Disney character. There is even a ride of the movie at Walt Disney World. An amazing ride that our family loves (that might show up on a future bracket soon...)

Jenna also had Brother Bear making the Final 4, so you can really see the wait the movie holds in our house. You can also see the female influence Jenna brings as opposed to us as she has many princess movies going further than us. She had Moana making the Final 4, Cinderella making the Sweet 16, Beauty and the Beast in the Elite 8, and Sleeping Beauty winning period which none of us had.

Jenna also had the Lion King making the Final Four. That movie is the only movie that advanced into all of our Final Fours. It also won the bracket for Noland Jr. However, with Jungle Book winning mine and Eli's brackets, which is the ultimate champion. If you go by most rounds advanced, it is a straight up tie. So our ultimate champions are both the Jungle Book and the Lion King for this family. The 1a and 1b movies of the Robinson household.

We might have a few more brackets with characters from Lion King or Jungle Book related stories, so please stay tuned. Trust in Me that we have a lot more great brackets to come.....

What do you pick?
What do you think of our picks?
What other brackets do you want us to do?
Leave us a comment and let us know!!
We will have a Super Hero bracket up in a few days for you!!!!

-Noland

The One That Started The Brackets

Junior caught bracket fever during March Madness. He was so into each and every game and the results of each of the contests. Unfortunately, we didn't know at the time how much he would love these brackets and they would be disposed of before we shared them. Our boy loved them so much that he wanted to do more brackets. We decided to start with a bracket that had already been made and printed out the Stanley Cup Playoff Bracket when the playoffs began.

Note: We actually did two other brackets before this that will be shared in the next two weeks, but this was the "next official" bracket that Noland Jr. wanted to participate in.

The brackets are below. We have done pretty dang well so far....

Up First, Noland Jr.

Jr. is probably the biggest Lightning fan in our house. Actually, he is definitely the biggest lightning fan in our house. He picked most the other teams based on mascot name. That being said, he did pick Columbus in an upset which was wrong, but came on advice. My family has a sports text and I often talk about how my cousin says Washington teams always lose, so that stuck with Jr.

Here is my bracket

You can see that I picked identically to Noland with the exception of having Washington beat Columbus which came true.

Here is Eli's bracket

Eli was a little high on the Ducks after seeing the Mighty Ducks movie. That steered him in the wrong direction on his picks a tad, but he still has a Tampa over Nashville final like the rest of us.

Jenna's up last

Jenna is not a hockey fan. Hers was far different than the rest of us. Much like Eli, she had the Ducks going far further than she should have because of the movie. She also went rogue in picking the Caps to beat the Penguins. Looks like she might be right on that one though...

One thing is for sure no matter what!!!!

We all picked the Lightning!!!!!!!

Go Bolts!!!!!!!!!

Did you fill out a Stanley Cup bracket? 

If so who did you pick?

What brackets do you want us to do?

Leave us a comment and let us know!!

Join us in 5 days for our Disney Movie Madness bracket!!!!!

- Noland Robinson