Get excited for March Ratness and the Final Fur

Rat basketball this Friday will determine (possibly) which basketball team will win the NCAA tournament. It’s like the Groundhog Day of basketball! And you’re invited!

March 29, 2016; 3:41 PM • by Susan Howson

When March Madness gets down to the final four teams…admit it. It kind of stops being fun and starts being just too tense.¹

Absolutely not so with the Science Museum of Virginia’s March Ratness! Here’s the key to neverending basketball fun: Take a bunch of adorable lady rats and pit them against each other so that we can all fill out brackets they don’t even know exist.

And what’s more, even if they did know what a bracket was–or even what a tournament, game, or audience was–they wouldn’t care! So long as they would like to eat, they will like to play basketball for us.

If you wanted to, you could make a parallel that in that regard the rats are compensated more fairly than student-athletes, but who has time for that! It’s March Ratness!

This year’s rat-thletes

They’re all members of the Four Sisters Conference.

Anna, representing the Villanova Wildcats
Picotte, representing the Oklahoma Sooners
Mouse, representing the North Carolina Tar Heels
Lillian, representing the Syracuse Orange

Each is named after the name (or the nickname, in Mouse’s case) of a little-known female scientist!

But when does this all happen and may I please, please participate?

Of course you may! Rat basketball is one of life’s greatest joys, and the Science Museum would never exclude you from it.

The Final Fur — LIVE!

Friday, April 1st • 11:00 AM
Science Museum of Virginia, 2500 W. Broad Street
Included with the cost of museum admission ($11 for 13 and over, $10 for kids 4-12 and seniors 60 , free for members, $8 for groups of 10 or more)
And, obviously,

You can also fill out a bracket using our form below and try to predict how you think the rats will do. If the rats end up successfully predicting the winner of the actual NCAA championship game, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win a family membership for one year!