Posted on 04/03/2010 9:30:04 PM PDT by tcrlaf
INDIANAPOLIS – So Butler went nearly 11 second-half minutes without a basket and won. The Bulldogs shot 30.4 percent from the field and beat Michigan State 52-50 anyway. They dished just five assists and got outrebounded and the Bulldogs – the Butler Bulldogs! – are going to play for the national title on Monday.
And you want to discount their chances now?
Butler in the finale is improbable. The last school from a smaller conference without a major football program to play for the title was Indiana State in 1979. The Sycamores had Larry Bird though. Butler, on the other hand
Brad Stevens, the 33-year-old coach who never gets rattled, could only shrug.
“I trust my guys,” Stevens said.
This is the most stunning part of the Butler story. Not just how far the Bulldogs have come, but how ugly they’ve looked in getting there. Butler won’t scare Duke, which it will face for the title Monday. Not that it matters. They haven’t scared anyone this entire tournament. At least not until the other team gets on the court and discovers a pack of wild Bulldogs harassing them on every possession.
Five games into this tournament and no opponent has gotten out of the 50s – the Bulldogs allowing a miserly 55.2 points a game in the NCAA tournament. Butler is winning with defense and whatever Jedi mind tricks Stevens employed to get them to buy wholly into the team concept.
“We have guys who’d rather guard the last shot than take it,” he said. “They care about winning. They really do. It’s not about them; it’s about the name on the front of the jersey.”
(Excerpt) Read more at rivals.yahoo.com ...
To understand this, you have to realize that the STUDENT-ATHLETES at Butler OUT-PHYSICALED the roughest, most physical team in the Big Ten, the most physical Conference!
To give you an idea of what this means to us Hoosiers, Governor Mitch Daniels invited Bobby Plump (The Milan Miracle, Butler Grad, Hall of Famer) and the still living members of the Milan '54 team to sit with him in his box for the game.
In Indiana Basketball, we always love for the little guy to come out on top! Any offers for the movie rights???
Villanova didn't have a football team when it won the title in '85.
Yeah but Nova is Big East, right?
He said smaller conference.
Is there anyone who is not a Duke alum that will be rooting for Duke on Monday night?
Big East didn’t start football until ‘91.
First off, kudos to Izzo and the Spartans — he’s the best college basketball coach there is, doing more with less, year after year, and that’s kind of difficult to figure out, since they do well, they should recruit a little better than they do.
Butler — I read somewhere the school’s team has never been in the NCAA Tournament before, so BRAVO.
Duke will crush these guys worse than they beat WVA.
Gotta believe this will be the whitest final we'll see in our lifetimes. (just sayin')
There are more people at Duke NOW, than there are living Butler University alumni....
Still, he said smaller conference.
It sucks but Butler’s going down hard on Monday.
“Butler — I read somewhere the school’s team has never been in the NCAA Tournament before, so BRAVO.”
That’s wrong. They’ve been in the tournament quite a few times recently.
They probably meant Final Four.
“Duke will crush these guys worse than they beat WVA.”
Coach K- “they can say anything they want until they see the video, and we tell them Butler has won 25 in a row...”
“It sucks but Butler’s going down hard on Monday.”
Perhaps... And they got the hell beat out of them tonite.
But they are literally playing Old-Style gumshoe Indiana TEAM Basketball. We’ll see how they do against the NBA Junior League.
They'll try and make this out to be some kind of "Hoosiers" redux, but I ain't buyin'. Butler is tough and they've got 2 future pros on that team. Should be a great game. Duke is playing awfully well.
Just sayin’ indeed. LOL!
I will be! Oh wait, I'm an alum. Never mind.
Wasn’t Butler ranked #11 preseason?
They were a #5 seed in the tournament. It’s not like they were in the play in game in Dayton.
Sign inside Hinkle Fieldhouse tonite said:
“Let’s win this one for all the small schools that never had the chance to get here”
That’s the famous Hackman line from the movie “Hoosiers”, before underdog Hickory High wins the Indiana state basketball title, in a movie version of Milan High’s famous victory in the actual 1954 championship.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.