College Basketball Programs That Should Update Their Mascot

Most of the mascots in college basketball fall somewhere on the spectrum between "acceptable" and "awesome," but there are a few that are long overdue for either a makeover or an explanation.

In many cases, it's due to a student body resistant to change. Several of the mascots on our "Please Update" list were recently remodeled, only to revert to their previous form after public outrage. Others were simply misconceived from the beginning and should probably start over from scratch.

Just do yourself a favor and don't spend too much time staring at the pictures in this slideshow. Side effects from ignoring this warning may include nausea, uncontrollable cringing and the inability to sleep through the night.

The following slides are listed in alphabetical order by school.

California Golden Bears

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The stitched-on smile doesn't change the fact that Oski is the most depressed looking mascot in the country. But you'd probably have a long face, too, if your ears looked like ant hills and you had to wear the same sweater for multiple decades.

Oski is one of the iconic mascots of collegiate sports. He has been around since 1941, predating such staples as Brutus Buckeye by almost a quarter-century.

However, nostalgia is a poor excuse for resisting change.

Feel free to keep the mascot suit around. Proudly display it in the halls of the athletic department or even build it a few statues to stand at the main entrances of the primary athletic venues. But please modernize the costume that shows up for games.

The closest California has come to bringing Oski into the 21st century is occasionally equipping him with a headband, but that just makes him look like he belongs in the 70s—either at a hippie rally or in a Richard Simmons workout video.

Indiana State Sycamores

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There were a lot of good candidates from schools that have nixed their Native American mascots over the past few decades, but none quite as bizarre as Indiana State.

It's not as unique as Teamy McTeamFace, but the student body at Indiana State voted on the Sycamores as their team name back in 1922, according to the school website. Unlike the Illinois Fighting Illini or North Dakota Fighting Sioux, which are clearly in reference to Native American tribes, the students allegedly picked Sycamores because of the abundance of that type of tree around the campus.

But since Stanford has apparently cornered the market on (unofficial) tree mascots, Indiana State debuted Chief Quabachi in 1969 and kept him for two decades. After complaints about the offensiveness of the caricature, though, they got rid of Chief Quabachi in 1989 and had no mascot for six years before going with this blue...fox?

"Sycamore Sam" looks like an older and strangely colored relative of Crash Bandicoot. At any rate, it looks like nothing involving a sycamore tree, so why not just change the team name, too? We've already got the Marist Red Foxes, so let's add the Indiana State Blue Foxes to the mix, too.

Portland Pilots

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It seems someone needs to tell Portland about the difference between a pilot of an aircraft and a captain of a ship.

Up until about a year ago, Wally Pilot had a different look. But even then, he didn't look like a pilot. Rather, he looked like the offspring of Popeye and a train conductor.

Portland does have airports, right? This shouldn't be that hard.

Whether Wally has a beard is irrelevant. He needs three things to be a proper-looking pilot: a much more appropriate hat, a pin with wings and aviator sunglasses. In fact, they should just ditch the plush mascot altogether and go the West Virginia Mountaineers route by having someone dress the part of an actual pilot for each game.

There aren't many schools where that approach works, but it's an obvious fit for Portland.

At the very least, try to work a plane into the shtick moving forward. Alternatively, we would accept a mascot that somehow embodies a pilot of a TV show or a pilot light on a water heater. Anything other than a captain of a ship, really.

Providence Friars

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On the one hand, there's only so much that can be done when trying to turn a religious profession into a school mascot. If they were the Providence Nuns, Rabbis or Imams, it would be just as challenging.

Still, Friar Dom is equal parts creepy and overly cartoonish. In that hooded monk robe, Dom looks like the Ghost of Christmas Future from A Christmas Carol, if said ghost had a nose the size of its fist and one long tooth atop its gaping black hole of a mouth.

Providence temporarily debuted a less disturbing but fatter-faced Friar Dom costume this past January, but by the time the NCAA tournament rolled around, it was still the creature above that appeared in Raleigh for the games against USC and North Carolina.

With both the old and new mascots, though, where Providence really dropped the ball is the hair. One of the only things that most people know about friars is the haircut made "popular" by Friar Tuck in the Robin Hood films and brought back to the present day when the Denver Broncos hazed rookie Tim Tebow by giving him a "friar cut."

Shave the top of his head and shrink his mouth by about 50 percent and Friar Dom would be drastically improved.

Purdue Boilermakers

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A mascot is supposed to be intimidating, but Purdue Pete is scary in an unintended way.

There's just something about the combination of the disturbingly long face, the helmet, the sledgehammer and the oft-exposed flesh on the arms and legs that give Purdue's mascot the look of something from a 90s teen slasher movie.

The plot practically writes itself:

After being framed for drug use by a group of arrogant students, Pete was fired from his job as head janitor at Purdue. But that didn't stop him from cleaning up the campus...with his trusty sledgehammer. This summer, revenge is a dish best served boiled.

Look, I'm not the only one creeped out by this mascot.

"(We get) phone calls from parents who say that big face scares their 3-year-old," said Purdue athletic director Morgan Burke in 2010, according to the Indianapolis Star (via Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.com). "It's been 25 to 30 years since he got a makeover. At some point, the poor old guy has to come into the 21st century."

The school tried to make some changes in 2011, but it was poorly executed and even more poorly received. Let's hope they give it the old college try again soon.

South Dakota State Jackrabbits

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The most distinctive feature of a jackrabbit is its ears. They stick straight up in the air and are almost as long as the animal's entire torso. They're like Bugs Bunny's ears, but even a little bigger, proportionately speaking.

But then there's "Jack," which looks like someone took the face from the Jack in the Box mascot and put it on Wilfred's body. If that hat is hiding a tuft of black hair, it could pass for a happy but dead-eyed Eeyore.

The floppy ears do limit the potential range of animals that Jack could be, but one is just as likely to guess elephant or dog as jackrabbit.

What's strange is that South Dakota State's logo is fierce and fantastic. The stark difference between the logo and mascot would be like the Arkansas Razorbacks having an inflatable Pumbaa wandering the sidelines.

Just lose the hat, stick the ears straight up and watch out for low ceilings and this mascot is at least 80 percent better.

TCU Horned Frogs

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Horned lizards are fascinating creatures. They use camouflage, can puff up their bodies similar to a blowfish and some species even have a last-resort defense mechanism of shooting a stream of blood from their eyes.

If Super Frog could shoot blood out of its eyes, we would be willing to overlook the fact that it doesn't look so much like a horned lizard as it does some kind of gargoyle Pokemon.

Why are the horns and spikes on Super Frog's head rounded when the spikes on its forearms and calves look sharper? They clearly have the ability to give Super Frog more realistic looking anti-predatory features on its head, but decided not to.

Why the forearms and calves, anyway? Why skip over the biceps and thighs to put spikes on what appear to be the least spiked part of the actual animal's body?

Why are the eyes so massive?

And where are the nostrils?

So many unresolved questions here. Super Frog could be the most uniquely incredible mascot in the country with a little more effort.

Toledo Rockets

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First of all, the origin of Toledo's nickname is a bit ridiculous.

According to the school website:

"

When the University of Toledo played then-powerful Carnegie Tech in football in 1923, Pittsburgh sports writers were surprised to learn that UT did not have a nickname. Though an underdog, Toledo fought formidably, recovering a series of embarrassing fumbles by favored Tech. Pittsburgh writers pressed James Neal, a UT student working in the press box, to come up with a nickname.

Despite UT's 32-12 loss, the student labeled the team "Skyrockets," obviously impressed by his alma mater's flashy performance against a superior team. The sportswriters shortened the name to "Rockets," which has been used since.

"

In other words, some kid in the wrong place at the right time was bullied into inventing a nickname that would stand for nearly a century. They could have just as easily been the Toledo Bobcats or something that actually has to do with the city of Toledo, but the Rockets is what the mascot designers were left to work with.

So, naturally, they came up with a scuba diving astronaut.

Now, if they were the Toledo Astronauts, it wouldn't be that bad. A more realistic looking spacesuit would be nice, but it would work. However, the implication here is that the mascot should be a rocket. It's great that his name is Rocky the Rocket, but we all know he's really Rocky the Astronaut.

(Then again, at least Rocky is better than the Grateful Dead-looking bear that the Houston Rockets have for a mascot.)

UAB Blazers

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A dragon could be an excellent mascot. Drexel University pulled it off well with Mario the Magnificent, fierce enough to mean business but not so scary as to send children running for the hills.

Blaze, on the other hand, looks like Puff the Magic Dragon, which makes one wonder which version of "Blazers" the student body was attempting to embody with this mascot.

As was the case with South Dakota State, there's a huge difference between the team logo and the mascot. The dragon on UAB's logo is a fire-breathing monster, ready to scorch anything and everything in its path. Meanwhile, Blaze is a happy alligator with wings who just wants to give you a hug.

At least South Dakota State has the excuse of minimal attempts by anyone to make a jackrabbit costume. What's UAB's excuse for disregarding centuries' worth of mesmerizing Chinese art to come up with this thing?

Heck, just dust off a Playstation and pop in a game of Spyro and you've got a lovable dragon that doesn't look like a goofball.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.