They’re Baaaaaaaaack!

Butler proved that last year was no fluke.

Last year I wrote a blog stating that the Butler Bulldogs should now be perceived as a major program after their run to the Final 4.

 

This year they have more than proven me to be a prophet.

 

After Butler’s 74-71 overtime victory over Florida in the Southeast Regional final, the Bulldogs reached their second consecutive Final 4. In the last 11 years only Florida, Maryland and UCLA have done that exact same feat. Those are heavy hitters folks.

 

Funny thing about this year’s team is that they were on the verge of not making it back to the dance. After last year’s improbable run the team suffered a few setbacks. Super Sophomore Gordon Haywood went to the NBA and combined with their heartbreaking loss to Duke The Bulldogs suffered from a long Final 4 hangover.

 

They came out of the gate super slow going 4-4 with huge losses to Louisville and Duke and a close road loss to Xavier. After they seemed to pull it together by winning the Diamond Head classic in Hawaii they suffered a 24-point thrashing at the hands of Milwaukee-Wisconsin and then lost three straight conference games including an embarrassing loss to 9-21 Youngstown State. At 14-9 the Bulldogs were battered and bloodied and seemed destined for the NIT than the NCAA and winning the Horizon League title was their only sure bet.

 

So naturally they picked themselves off of the mat and kept going.

 

Just like last year’s 24 game winning streak, Butler has reeled off 13 straight games including their 4 wins in the NCAA tournament. Butler has become masterful in close game situations, as 9 of the 13 wins have come by 8 points or less including outlasting a much bigger and stronger Florida team.

 

Butler does it with defense limiting two opponents to over 70 in their last 14 games. Against Florida they outrebounded the Gators 36-33 and held them to 3-14 from behind the arc.

Brad Stevens might be the best coach in college right now.

This is a testament to Brad Stevens’ brilliance as a head coach. You can make the case that Stevens is currently the best coach in America after this four year run in Indianapolis.

 

After losing his star to the NBA and watching his team become the target of every mid-major program, Stevens just kept it moving and kept pushing his players. Once Haywood left, Shelvin Mack stepped in to take on the bulk of the scoring responsibilities. Matt Howard shook off a poor NCAA tournament last year and as been great down low, and Ronald Nored is still the defensive beast this year coming off of the bench.

 

While most coaches would have panicked after a mid-season lull, Stevens stayed the course and let his team figure it out and it paid off. In doing so Stevens now heads to his second Final 4 and is the youngest coach to ever reach two Final 4’s. He now has the same amount of appearances in the Final 4 as John Calipari, Gary Williams, and Bob Huggins and has more appearances than Thad Motta, Tubby Smith and Bill Self. That’s not a bad bragging point.

 

12 months ago after the shot that almost was, we wondered if we would ever see Butler come close to the opportunity that it had to win it all that night. We wondered could the little school from the little Horizon League conference, or any mid-major for that matter, replicate what had almost happened that night.

 

12 months later we get to find out.

 

Once and for all Butler proves their aint nothing small about their program. You can officially remove the mid from their vernacular. These guys are just major.

Those Damn Dukies

Word to the wise, never go against your favorite team no matter the circumstance. Don’t outsmart yourself with what you didn’t see, go with what you did see. Don’t focus on the negatives, just the positives. If I would’ve done that then I would’ve picked Duke to be in the final 4 and win the national championship instead of having them losing to Louisville in the second round… oops.

Duke, the forgotten one seed, wins it all.

The argument against Duke was that they were a 3-man team of Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer (which was true, check the stats on offense to see). They weren’t athletic enough to beat Baylor, weren’t tough enough to hang with Purdue, and didn’t have the experience to get by West Virginia. They lost games to NC State (inexcusable), were beat up by Georgetown, and outhustled by Maryland. They got an easy draw in the tournament by the committee, based on the name brand being Duke. In reality all of those negatives hid the mind numbing positives.

(Just to be clear though, the easy bracket thing is most definitely true. Look I’m a fan, but there is no way that they should’ve gotten the third number seed over Syracuse, and handed an easier bracket than the team that was number one for 70 percent of the year in Kansas. However, in fairness they did play a virtual road game in Houston when they took on Baylor. Word to the NCAA, from now on when doing the field, maybe you shouldn’t put the three seed in a bracket where if they win they would be the home team over a 2 or 3 seed. Just saying)

One; they were not just Scheyer, Singler and Smith, the big men on this team made them tick. Brian Zoubek, after 3 highly disappointing season, dominated the boards in every tournament game and made life hell for the Butler guards on the inside. The Plumlee twins, Miles and Mason, were offensive rebounding machines and gave great minutes off of the bench, and Lance Thomas, the forgotten senior, was his usual stoic self limiting the Butler guards on their chances on the outside and giving Matt Howard fits on the inside while Zoubek rested. They were a complete team I just never saw it.

You can’t say enough about Kyle Singler however. Singler drove the offensive bus this evening when Smith or Scheyer couldn’t get shots to fall. Singler’s outstanding final four of averaging 20 points and 9 rebounds came off of a wretched game against Baylor when he shot 0 for 10 and finished with 5 points. Singler was the best player on the court for Duke offensively and made great plays on defense by blocking three shots and harassing Gordon Hayward all night.

Yet the credit will, and should, go to coach Mike Krzyzewski. For the last few years you had to wonder if maybe Roy Williams was winning the recruiting battle in North Carolina, and that maybe Coach K was more focused on coaching LeBron and company in the Olympics. This tournament proved that Coach K is as focused as ever. He used the Plumlee twins brilliantly off of the bench and implementing that hellacious man-to-man defense that wouldn’t sleep. He kept the ball in the players’ hands that knew what best to do with it and gave the others their proper roles and it paid off in the end.

So it seems like life is back to normal in college hoops. After the wildest tournament in recent memory that was filled with surprises. An old faithful stands at the top of the hill, much to the angst of everyone from Indianapolis to Chapel Hill to the left coast. Turns out for all of our talk about Kansas, Kentucky and Syracuse being the best team in the country, the best one of them all was sitting right there all along. All of us, including yours truly were blinded by what was wrong and missed everything that was right. My bad Coach K. It will never happen again, promise.

Big Time Butler

Yep Butler's in the final 4.

Thad Motta made them competitive. Todd Lickliter made them known. Brad Stevens has done something even more amazing, he’s turned the Butler Bulldogs into a national power.

No they’re not Duke, or Kansas, or even Arizona, but you can no longer call Butler a mid-major. Shed the mid, they are just major.

After beating Kansas State 63-56, Butler will now go to a place where only George Mason of the CAA has gone, the final 4 as a mid-major conference competitor. This wasn’t an overnight thing either. It started with Thad Motta in 2000-01 leading the team to a 24 win season and a second round tourney appearance. Then Lickliter came in and in 7 seasons pulled out a pair of Sweet sixteen appearances beating national powers like Florida and Maryland in the process. The bar for Stevens was set very high to keep the momentum going after Lickliter’s departure. All he’s done is reel off two 30 win seasons and bring Butler to within two wins of a national championship, and in the process they replace Gonzaga as the best team not from a major conference in the country.

Gonzaga never could shed the mid-major tag with their ridiculous runs in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Gonzaga was the school the always got close, but never could get over the hump. Butler however has found a way to go from a dangerous mid-major program, to becoming a player in the college championship race in the 3 seasons since Brad Stevens took over. His in your face man to man defense gave fits to some of the best players in the country and limited their effectiveness on the outcome of contests this year whether you’re Jacob Pullen, Wes Johnson or Derrick Caracter.

They did it with a team that most would consider to be half as talented as Kansas State or any other major conference team. A sharp shooting Gordon Haywood, and in your face Shelvin Mack and a threat down low in Matt Howard, who in this is junior season has deferred to the former two and become a great complementary player.

They did it by blowing through the Horizon league after a shaky start to the season where Butler lost 4 games before January and almost dropping out of the top 25 in the process. Coach Stevens at one point sat his team down and showed them their runner-up trophy from the Horizon league last year, which led to an early ousting in the NCAA tourney. He used it as a motivational tool to get his team going, boy did it ever.

After an embarrassing loss to UAB, Butler hasn’t lost since. They hold the nation’s longest winning streak at 24, mostly against foes from the Horizon league. However since Thursday night against Syracuse, a team picked by many to win it all just a month ago, the dogs proved the win streak was no joke. They shut down Wesley Johnson and controlled the tempo all game long making the Orange play into their hands all night. Similarly against the Wildcats Jacob Pullen and Dennis Clemente were non-factors going a combined 11-30 with Mack and Ronald Nored in their grills all night preventing any open looks. The Bulldogs beat up two of the nation’s top ten teams all year and when it counted, kept their composure late to stave off any late comeback attempts.

Now what awaits them is an eventual home game at Lucas Oil Stadium next Saturday. The Butler campus is a paltry 6 miles away from the stadium, which means Tennessee or Michigan State can expect lots of blue and white in the stands for that game much like what North Carolina faced in the title game in Detroit last year. What everyone can also expect is every “Hoosiers” reference in the book over the next week. It doesn’t help that Butler plays in the same arena that housed the classic basketball film.

However, don’t confuse this team with Hickory high school. This is a magical run by a team not many people picked to be here, but it is also a team with enough bite to scare all opponents from the Horizon to the big East and the Big 12. These guys are small in budget and funds only, like Kanye West said, “Come on homie we major!” Butler most definitely is.