Butler Basketball

Coach K is a brilliant speaker who can always come up with a quick response.

His fourth national championship victory had just been secured. He stood with his players in front of the crowd, a microphone held before him, and was asked a question that he clearly wasn't expecting: whether, out of all his championship victories, this one could be called the best.

He looked surprised, stammered for half a second, and gave the politically correct response: "Yes, this one was the best."

Then he probably immediately began drafting in his head the letter of apology he would send to all of the former superstars he just threw under the bus.

How could he explain to Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, or Jason Williams what he'd just said? Was there any way to do it? Would a standard Coach K "We're all winners" axiom suffice?

The plain truth is that, not only was this not the best Duke championship team ever, this wasn't even a very good Duke team at all. Their play was erratic, their decision-making suspect, their performance in this championship game unimpressive on the smaller and the larger scale.

If the game against Butler were not for the championship, but just a regular-season matchup, Duke's narrow escape by two points would be cause for concern. It might even make a headline: "What Went Wrong in Indianapolis?"

The Duke teams of the past were so scary because they were so poised. Every player knew the game plan like he knew his own name. Watching them, you almost had the feeling that they had already played the game before and were just going through the motions for the second time.

The passes were crisp around the perimeter. Their shot selection was flawless. Their defense was like a finely tuned machine. And they had an answer for everything.

Watching your team play them, their telepathic connection with each other was infuriating, and you had the sense that the only way you could beat them was if they were injured, you were Carolina, or their basket had a lid on it.

The team that put on Duke's uniforms Monday night was a completely different animal. Guys were falling all over the floor. Three players went up for the same rebound and collided. On offense, they sometimes didn't know what to do with the ball when they caught it, looking around for help; when a set play broke down, they became frantic.

The hallmark of Coach K's offense, that perfect spacing on the floor, was nonexistent—and their defense was like bumblebee soccer, running around after the guy with the ball and getting in each other's way. Nobody was poised. Nobody was patient. That just wasn't the Duke team we had all learned to regard with terror.

Sure, these guys are pretty good individually. Kyle Singler is a fair version of Mike Dunleavy. Nolan Smith has a better shot than Chris Duhon, with weaker defense. But none of these guys is electric like Bobby Hurley, dominant like Elton Brand, or clutch like Christian Laettner.

Seriously, could this team have beaten Kentucky in the Greatest Game Ever Played? Could it have beaten that Arizona team in 2001 with Gilbert Arenas, Richard Jefferson, and Loren Woods? Could it have beaten Bobby Knight in his prime or UNLV in that crazy juggernaut run? Could it have even beaten the Duke teams with Chris Carawell and Wojo?

As it was, they beat a mid-major No. 5 seed in a one-possession game. The only claim Duke can really make this year is that the top has come down so much in college basketball that there was no one left to play at the end of the tournament.

While the top has come down, however, the bottom has come up. The victory Butler can celebrate is that, even if it hasn't forced a change, it has signaled a shifting of the tectonic plates in college basketball.

Years later, folks will look back on this tournament as the year of Butler. Duke will be a detail. That they didn't win a championship won't stop the conversation.

It's not about the Hoosiers storyline, the "little school that could," to give encouragement to all the small-conference schools that play tough and believe in themselves. It's about the entire landscape changing.

Butler didn't beat Michigan State and nearly beat Duke because they spontaneously caught fire, like George Mason, only to get slammed by a really good team. They were actually good enough, and—as they've made obvious by now—they can do it again.

That's the lesson Butler taught us: From now on, this can be done again.

When Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins changed the landscape of the NBA, everybody wanted to see the athletes who could run like cheetahs and jump out of the gym.

Athletes trained that way, and the game changed. The old-heads bemoaned the lack of fundamentals, the errant passes and bad shot selection and terrible low-post footwork, but the world wanted to see flash. We got it, and it's been awesome.

But with the departure of Shaun Livingston and J.R. Smith from college commitments to the NBA, with LeBron James and Dwight Howard going pro, college basketball lost a lot of top-level talent. With that, the top programs suffered.

Big-time coaches had built their systems around athletes with superhuman abilities and now all of a sudden were left with the dregs in the bottom of the mug of high-priced coffee, the kids who could jump really high but couldn't get into the NBA and hadn't learned any fundamentals on the way.

The small-time programs? They just did what they'd always done.

The small schools never had Vince Carter or Tim Duncan. They had always relied on good defense, rebounding, moving without the ball. And with the big programs flailing about, the smaller programs got tournament experience. The top programs were beatable, and the smaller schools could do it with their fundamentally sound play.

Now, we've got what the old-heads had wanted for the past 20 years: a huge collection of mid-major teams who got themselves enough good experience against big programs that they can do this any time they want. The difference between a No. 1 seed and a No. 5 seed, in today's NCAA, is two points.

Where was West Virginia in 2005? Pulling off an upset. Where was Butler in 2001, 2003, and 2007? Pulling off upsets. Where were they in 2010? In the Final Four.

The 19-year-old rule has been passed in the NBA, but the window has been open for small schools for long enough that the shift is now complete. The college game has changed. It hasn't gone back in time, but it's reached back for what used to work and made itself ultimately stronger.

Analogize with me here: When the Lakers signed Karl Malone and Gary Payton to join Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, we were all ready to hand them the championship. Just take it, we said; save everyone some time.

But then the Pistons came along, with a ragtag group of misfits and a brilliant coach who taught them to "play the right way," and beat the Lakers in five games. That was awesome for the fans. It was liberating.

When the Patriots brought in Randy Moss to play with Tom Brady, they steamrolled through the NFL, and we all threw up our hands. What point was there in rooting for anyone during a season like that? But then the Giants came along and played defense like a solid wall and proved that you can't buy a championship. The nation sighed in relief.

We love that guts, teamwork, and smart decisions are still relevant. We're refreshed by the idea that you don't have to have certain genes to win. The fact that Butler isn't a champion won't take it out of the conversation. Duke received the same warning on Monday that the Lakers and the Patriots did: Nice try, but there are no guarantees anymore.

I don't feel happy for Duke that they won. For a Duke player, winning just makes the caviar taste better. Duke winning a championship is like a 16-year-old buddy telling you his dad bought him a Corvette for his birthday. You want him to feel good, but...did he really do anything?

Butler has accomplished something more profound. They didn't just "win one for the little guys." They gave a warning, and with that came a guarantee. This wasn't a fluke; this is the way the game is going to be now—and the big programs had better get used to it.

Butler didn't personify Hoosiers. They personified Stand by Me.

If you follow the media at all, you might be inclined to believe that Monday night’s Duke-Butler game was one of the greatest NCAA finals ever played.

While there is plenty of the “game for the ages” talk going around, one could suggest such glorification's are the result of a rare close finish in the Big Dance finale, as opposed to the extraordinary quality of the game.

As fun and exciting as “Hoosiers: Almost The Sequel” was, it has to be noted that upon further examination this instant classic has some blemishes.

Yes, it had the perfect movie script story with mid-major darling Butler riding a 25-game winning streak. The Bulldogs from the Midwest with the fresh-faced kids and fresher-faced coach taking on an East Coast basketball dynasty was the perfect set up for an epic battle.

Maybe even David vs. Goliath proportions.

While the game was certainly more entertaining than last year’s UNC beat-down of Michigan State, the “game for the ages” and “instant classic” tags deserve a second look.

Of greatest note is the simple fact that for most of the second half of this game, neither team could score a field goal.

Regardless of whether it was nerves, fatigue or bad shooting, Butler went over seven-and-a-half minutes without a field goal. That would have been the point where Duke—had they been shooting as well as they had in previous games—would typically have broken open the game.

The problem plagued Butler in both Final Four games, prompting coach Brad Stevens to tell David Letterman, "We'd never been to a Final Four, so I didn't realize they'd put a lid on the basket for 10 minutes in the second half."

But, although they led most of the second half, the Blue Devils couldn’t pull away.  Instead, Duke scored exactly two field goals in the final 10 minutes of the game keeping things interesting.  With all due respect to both teams, that’s a little ugly.

The fact is, Duke’s poor shooting kept the game close and set up the last second shot that would have punctuated CBS' newly buggered up version of One Shining Moment.  Duke was 5-17 from behind the arc—29.4 percent—and they shot an uncharacteristic 62.5 percent from the charity stripe, going 10-16. Duke had 12 turnovers compared to Butler’s seven.  Of course, a bunch of ACC teams would be happy with either number—just ask Ol’ Roy.

Just to keep the “Duke gets all the calls” crowd at bay, the Bulldogs shot two more free throws (18) than Duke.

When the shouting dies down and the superlatives return to normal, this clearly was a wonderful basketball game replete with great stories.

That said, let’s not rush it into the Hall of Fame just yet.

It took a couple days to find the correct words to describe what the 2009-2010 Butler Bulldogs accomplished.

I read the columns by sports writers that had deadlines: Bob Kravitz (Indianapolis Star), Luke Winn (Sports Illustrated), Dennis Dodd (CBS Sports), and even writing against the clock they were able to capture the feelings of the moment and spark emotion into the reader.

"Another Butler student stood in the back of that section, frozen, defiantly making a No. 1 sign, pointing toward Lucas Oil’s roof. He was clinging to an alternate reality, one in which Hayward’s aim was true, and what might’ve been the greatest buzzer-beater of all-time didn’t hit backboard, front rim, and then floor, " wrote Winn .

"Let everyone else hail the Dookies, deserving national champions. This is about Butler. This is about a joyride that absolutely captured the heart of this community and this country. This is about the smallest school in the 64-team era -- and the fourth-smallest school in NCAA Tournament history -- taking us all to a place that seemed unreachable and unimaginable," said Kravitz .

I have a feeling I wasn't the only grown man to shed a tear. But these tears were an eerie feeling.

It wasn't an upset feeling that Butler had just lost in the national championship to Duke, but rather a feeling of witnessing something so special and so rare, that you couldn't help but cry out of happiness.

As a Hoosier, I had this feeling one other time, when Jim Harbaugh's "Hail Mary" fell inches short from sending the underdog Indianapolis Colts to the Super Bowl, but uniting a community even in the loss.

"Words can't even describe what this basketball team has done to Butler; a rejuvenated spirit was reborn- this team brought our campus together. Not only the campus--the city too," said Jackie Kompouras, a 2009 graduate of Butler University

But the Butler story is completely different than any professional team that was entitled to the "underdog" role. This would have been the present day basketball version of the 1980 USA Olympics Hockey Team.

Maybe even better.

The ending to Butler's story is like that old Gatorade commercial where Joe Montana's pass is incomplete, or Derek Jeter's throw is late to home plate.

Unfortunately, this was no digitally remastered ending.

Think of every iconic sports moment in history; one inch in a different direction and it's an entirely different outcome.

"Life's this game of inches."- Al Pacino, Any Given Sunday

Think if Doug Flutie's "Hail Mary" fell incomplete, Christian Laettner took an extra dribble (or Grant Hill's pass was just a little off), Adam Vinateiri misses the FG, Mike Eruzione doesn't score, Joe Carter only has warning track power, or Bobby Plump doesn't hit the shot to inspire Hoosiers which inspires the Butler comparisons.

Butler's story and ending would have surpassed all of those if Gordon Hayward's shot was just a little bit softer.

"Those last 13 seconds seemed to last an hour, and all I know is that after the final buzzer, the atmosphere was eerily quiet; too quiet for an NCAA championship finale. America was pulling for Butler and you could feel it," said  Kompouras.

What we witnessed with the half-court heave on April 5, 2010 would have been on the "deleted scenes" or "outtakes" of the working title  movie, until Zack Efron (as Hayward) got it right.

Paul Haggis couldn't/wouldn't have written a better script.

It wasn't supposed to end like this, but it did.

The most gut wrenching fact is BUTLER (a private school with an enrollment of 4,000 outside of Indianapolis) came up an inch to the left from being mentioned in the same breath as the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey Team, or any other inspiring sports story you want to insert here.

This was Friday Night Lights on the biggest stage of amateur basketball, with or without the sad music at the end.

You can almost picture coach Brad Stevens dropping the names of seniors Willie Veasley and Avery Jukes off the depth chart at the end of the season, similar to Billy Bob Thornton.

Still there is more to be proud of, than saddened by.

Is this the same Butler school that is 10 minutes down the road, only slightly bigger than my high school, and where we went to basketball camp every summer?

Once again, Butler fans reiterated that they had tears of "What could have been" , but those were out-teared by "What they did."

Many Butler fans admitted they couldn't watch sports shows on the Tuesday after the game. They couldn't take hearing the thud of Hayward's shot hitting the rim and bouncing out, or the fact they couldn't do anything to comfort their friends on the team.

"The hardest part about this is that those weren't just basketball players out there, those guys are our friends. Butler's a small school--the loss affected everyone," said Kompouras.

However, they all agreed that they are just as proud of their Bulldogs in the loss, as they would have been in victory.

These are the same Bulldogs from Indiana that were always overlooked by the Hoosiers, Boilermakers, Irish, and heck, even Cardinals throughout the state.

However, the true sports fan, Hoosier, and Butler Bulldog can tell you this March run was NOT entirely as shocking as it seems.  (See my Butler has been doing it for years, you just didn't notice column.)

The 2010 March Madness edition might have been the last pure tournament in college basketball.

The only thing missing was Luther Vandross' "One Shining Moment."

In 2011, the field will likely expand to 96 teams, for one reason and one reason only: money.

"It's for the money. Isn't everything? It's certainly not for the players, some of whom could be on the road for a week. The NCAA spoke of "opportunity". The rest of us lamented an American beauty disfigured by an ugly cyst the size of the NIT," said CBS Sports Dennis Dodd.

Gone is purity. What was left of it anyway.

Butler was/is the definition of the student athlete. Those kids are on campus for school and basketball. Other than Hayward, and possibly Mack, the kids on that team will never play in the NBA and maybe one or two of them will play overseas.

But they came together as a team with a dream.

Much like coach Stevens, who quit his job at Eli Lilly to take a chance on his basketball passion, they dreamed big.

To everyone else, Butler and a National Championship in the same sentence was a pipe dream.

To everyone else.

Stevens reiterated that his team had championship aspirations all season and believed in themselves and the system that this would work.

“Teams are going to see what we did and know that they have a shot,” sophomore Ronald Nored said. “They can know that if they play together, and do the right thing, and listen to their coach, they have a great shot at doing something special.”

Duke has taken an unnecessary bad rap over the years from overzealous fans.  When you are great, people want to knock you down.

But this Blue Devils team was very similar to the Butler team, just a little, ok a lot, more high profiled.

Butler balls on a budget with a little over $1.3 million spent on team expenses. Duke has a basketball budget over $13 million.

Under Coach K, they do things the right way as well: excel in the classroom and on/off the court, and as usual, a gentleman himself after the game.

"This was a classic," Krzyzewski said. "A game we won. They didn't lose it."

"The guys are crushed, this matters," said Stevens.

What we should remember from Butler's run in this tournament is how much it matters to the small schools. These guys aren't playing basketball to reach the next level, but are playing through their passion.

The media is starting to move on this week. They will talk endlessly about Tiger Woods coming back to The Masters and harp on sports stories that are irrelevant.

However, there are a group of fifteen Butler Bulldogs (thirteen of them Hoosiers) that captured the imagination of a community, city, and a country one March/April that we will never see again in this money hungry era.

These stories are so few and far between, as Americans, we need to stop and appreciate what these boys gave us, before we move on to the next arrest or apology by a pro athlete.

The game played out like the Hollywood script it was meant to emulate. Monday night’s dramatic championship game ended with Duke edging Butler 61-59. But that was only the score, not the full story. Duke’s fourth national championship was earned the hard way. Neither team ever led by more than six points. It was back and forth all night. Tight defense, missed shots, clutch baskets, mistakes, and suspense throughout.

Then there was the end. Butler with the ball, down by one, 60–59. The shot clock is off. All I know is one shot wins the game. A Butler shot. Isn’t that what the script called for?

My heart raced at least 20 beats faster. Could it really happen? Butler’s Gordon Hayward, the Brownsburg, Indiana kid who appears destined to become the next Hoosier legend, has the ball, he drives right. Hayward stops. He arcs the ball ever so slightly over long outstretched arms. Long enough it seems to throw off the shot. Duke rebound. Butler quickly fouls. Two shots. The first one hits. The second looks like it was deliberately missed. Butler rebound. Less than four seconds on the clock. Ball quickly to Hayward.

Hayward takes a couple of dribbles then heaves a half-court desperation shot which finds the mark, circles the rim, and spins away. If it falls Butler wins. It doesn’t.

Then the stunning realization that there would be no shining moment for Butler. And the “Hoosiers” sequel had ended with a loss.

There are no excuses, but there are facts. When Butler could have taken control of the game, guys missed point blank layups. Hayward missed nine of 11 shots throughout the game. Butler also missed critical free throws down the stretch. And Butler’s normally impenetrable defense failed to stop a couple of inbounds passes which turned into easy Duke points. Add up those lapses and you can make a case for Butler comfortably winning the game.

But that is woulda, coulda, shoulda. The fact is, Duke, the long acknowledged masters of college basketball won another title the way the team always does—by being just a little bit more precise, by hitting a few more clutch baskets, and by listening to their coach.

I’m still a little numb right now. I was all in for the magical ending. I really thought Butler would pull it off. And here at the end I thought fate could not have crafted a better ending. But it didn’t happen.

History tells us Duke will more than likely play for another title in the near future. But fairy tales, like the one that Butler just played the starring role in, suggest that the Bulldogs may have been to their first and last Final Four.

While Butler’s magical cinderella season is over, the talent remains. Butler is NOT George Mason. They are not one-season wonders. Gordon Hayward, Shelvin Mack, and Matt Howard return next season, as do most of the team’s supporting cast, and in the wings there is an excellent recruiting class.

If pollsters are fair, the Bulldogs will enter next season ranked no worse than fifth. Some might even rank them number one.

But before we get too excited Butler needs to do a couple of things first if the school wants this success to sustain itself and grow.

Capitalize on the exposure and grow the program. The dollar value of the exposure Butler got from this unique run to the Final Four is in the many millions. The team will never be more popular than it is now.

Pay the coach a competitive salary and increase the basketball budget. This team can go all the way again next year and Butler has a lot of good players waiting in the queue. They can’t let Brad Stevens go now. Find the money to pay him more, even ask Indy’s drug company, Eli Lilly, Stevens’ former employer, to help pay him if you need to.

Sell out Hinkle Fieldhouse. There should be no more empty seats, not for this team and not for future teams. Having a big time program means you must fill the arena at home.

Butler has arrived as a national power. How powerful is up to the university. But one thing is clear: With all the talent at Butler right now, there is no reason to think they cannot return to the final game. With one more year of experience the team’s core players should be even better next season.

Losing to Duke is not the end for Butler, but a beginning. Though it is the end of Butler’s Cinderella story. The Bulldogs are no longer a secret and will no longer be taken lightly by anyone.

Share on Facebook

Share/Save

INDIANAPOLIS—The clock read 3.6 seconds. Duke led by one, and the Blue Devils' worst free throw shooter was on the line.

Brad Stevens and Mike Krzyzewski frantically set their teams up for the final ticks of the clock that would decide one of the closest NCAA Tournament Championship games ever.

Duke had a plan, and Butler knew it.

Brian Zoubek said Coach K told him to try to make the first and definitely miss the second. Butler didn't have any timeouts and couldn't call timeout when securing the rebound. That forced Butler to go the length of the court in 3.6 seconds.

"I thought there was no doubt they were going to try to miss," Butler guard Ronald Nored said. "Time automatically runs off the clock. We have to scramble. They might tip or get the offensive rebound. If he makes it, we get to set up a play."

The missed free throw scenario almost didn't happen. If it weren't for 70,000 screaming fans, we would be talking about a completely different, unforgettable 3.6 seconds.

"It was so hectic because coach said to first miss it, but then I think he tried to get him to not to," Duke guard Jon Scheyer said. "It was so loud in here...We didn't know what coach wanted to do at the end because it was so confusing."

Zoubek never got that message, and that meant the deliberate miss was on.

The Blue Devil center almost got his own rebound, but Gordon Hayward caught the ball and made the frantic dash up the court with his teammates clearing the way.

"I was just standing in the way, so I figured I would be useful," Butler forward Matt Howard said. The Bulldog big man stopped his tracks near half-court to set a vicious screen on Kyle Singler.

With the defenders out of the way and the clock about to hit zero, it was up to Gordon Hayward to put the ball in the air from the time-line.

"Anytime you have a player of Gordon's caliber and he's got the ball in his hands and he lets it fly on the last attempt, you feel like you got a chance to win," Brad Stevens said.

The Butler players and the 55,000 people rooting on Butler tried to will it in.

"I thought the ball was going in," Nored said. "I really did."

"Felt good. Looked good. Just wasn't there...Just didn't go in," Hayward said.

The way Duke players reacted suggests they also thought the long bomb had a chance to drop, sealing Butler's place in history.

"It seemed like the shot was in the air for a long time," Scheyer said. "When I saw it in the air, my heart dropped. It's the difference between being a national title winner or not."

"I glanced at it, and then I turned around," Nolan Smith said. "I was right there next to him; I ran past him. I knew it was a good look. I waited for the crowd's reaction."

"Once I saw he missed it, I fell to the ground, and Jon tackled me," Lance Thomas said.

That final shot will be etched in the memories of millions as the defining moment of the tournament.

"This moment will stand out the most," Hayward said. "I hate losing. I just hate it so much. Losing is the worst. There are so many good things and it was an honor to be in that game."

That moment was also made for the big screen. A media member said to Scheyer, "In the movies, that goes in."

Scheyer laughed, then responded, "Good thing this wasn't the movies then."

It wasn't cinema now, but someday down the road it will be.

For more stories and updates on college basketball, follow @JamesonFleming on twitter.

Somewhere atop college basketball’s Mount Olympus, Dr. James Naismith had a peach basket-sized grin on his face.

Iba, Haskins, and Rupp put down their playing cards, cigars, and single malts to pay homage to the purest 40 minutes of college basketball played in a championship setting in a long while.

Somewhere in the Pantheon of college basketball greats, Al McGuire celebrated the championship game’s toughness by moonwalking across the parquet floor at the celestial mansion. As the clock struck zero, the late Marquette great punched the butler and belly laughed in true Coach Al fashion.

For both basketball purists and casuals alike, this game’s ending had one quibble—the winner. Hey, college basketball gods! That shot is supposed to go, if all is right in the world.

From their lofty perch, these greats would likely disagree. Go ahead and tell this curmudgeonly group of old coaching warhorses that Jimmy Chitwood was supposed to hit that shot. Tell them the game didn’t go according to plan. I dare you.

They’d look at such whiners with utter disdain, shortly before ashing their cigars on your forehead and reminding you that teams who go 13 minutes without a field goal don’t deserve a 1-4 low set with an Indiana phenom making a buzzer beater.

You don’t deserve Hoosiers .

Gordon Hayward will get a half court prayer and like it. And he almost did.

What the college basketball world witnessed last night in the Mecca of high school basketball was anything but mythological. Sure, there was the David and Goliath story, and that always makes for compelling television and copy.

However, the real story lines were two-fold. First, this game proved teams can be successful playing the game as it was designed to be played—with defense, rebounding and toughness, instead of shooting, more shooting and dunking.

Classic basketball that stays in front of the dribbler, and plays perfect positional ball-you-man defense away from it. Blocking out is passé? Like hell it is. Rebounding out of your area? Ludicrousness! Put your body on somebody.

And give me some masterful defensive tweaks. Like when the upstart coaching phenom Brad Stevens played Lance Thomas the same way the master himself, Coach K, played UNLV’s George Ackles two decades earlier. Except Duke had Kyle Singler, John Scheyer, and Nolan Smith, while Vegas had Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon, and Greg Anthony.

It’s the kind of ironic full-circle of events that Al McGuire would relish.

The other interesting story line was this college basketball game was played with, well, collegians. There weren’t any one-and-done or two-and-done guys on these squads.

No mercenaries or hired hoopology scholars.

Duke and Butler’s players are actual students, evidenced by a group Bulldogs actually attending class six miles from the championship site the morning of game day. No hot tubs with loan sharks or rain-making in clubs.

Novel idea, this studying component.

This game was about The Game and nothing more, which is kind of cool when you think about it. It’s something that doesn’t really need to be broken down. Team A guarded and rebounded against team B the way you’re supposed to.

Team B returned the favor and came one possession short of a huge upset in a game that featured over 140 possessions.

For one shining moment the basketball gods were appeased. My only complaint is that they screwed up our song. I guess something had to break from tradition.

Whither Luther Vandross?

-----------

Kevin writes the leading college hoops blog March To March.

Follow him on Twitter: @MarchToMarch

Had Gordon Hayward’s fadeaway jumper from the right baseline fallen through the net with four seconds left to play in last night’s NCAA championship game—giving Butler a 61-60 lead and leaving Duke in need of a miracle to win—it would have been the perfect Hollywood ending—though perhaps a bit clichéd for cinema—to Butler’s storybook season.

It has been a season that has drawn comparisons to the story of little Milan High School, an underdog team that won the Indiana high school basketball state championship, in the classic movie Hoosiers, which was filmed in Butler’s own Hinkle Fieldhouse.

Had Heyward’s desperation shot from just inside halfcourt moments later fallen—as it almost did—and given the Bulldogs a 62-61 victory as time expired, the Hollywood script would have been sent back for editing to make it more believable.

As it stands, Butler’s incredible season and run through the NCAA Tournament came to a close last night with a 61-59 defeat against a top-seeded team from Duke that many expected to run away with this title game.

The Bulldogs started the season ranked 11th in the nation—a major sign of respect for a mid-major team from the Horizon League. Four losses by mid-December dropped the team down the rankings and off the national radar. But lost in that was a difficult non-conference schedule and marquee wins against eventual NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 teams Ohio State and Xavier.

After losing to UAB in mid-December, however, the Bulldogs did not lose another game until last night. They cruised through their weak conference schedule with a perfect 14-0 record and handled the conference tournament in early March just as easily.

Despite boasting the nation’s longest winning streak of 20 games, Butler entered the NCAA Tournament as a No. 5 seed in the West region and without a lot of respect or national attention for having dominated an unheralded mid-major conference. One would have had to search far and wide for a college basketball analyst or sportswriter that had the Bulldogs advancing past the Sweet 16 in their brackets.

The first week of the tournament Butler did just enough to advance, but didn’t impress anyone in the process.

They trailed No. 12 seed UTEP at half time in the first round before going on a three-point frenzy in the second half that eventually gave them an easy 77-59 victory.

In the second round, the Bulldogs faced an upstart No. 13 seed Murray State squad that had upset Vanderbilt in the first round. Again the Bulldogs had to make up for a half time deficit and held on for victory in the waning moments only when star forward Hayward stole the ball on Murray State’s final possession to secure a 54-52 victory.

Thus, the Bulldogs entered the Sweet 16, seeming lucky to have advanced against lesser ranked opponents and destined to make a prompt exit against the No. 1 seed in the West region, the Syracuse Orange.

But then Butler emerged and became America’s darling for the next two weeks.

The Bulldogs jumped on the Orange early, blew a double-digit second half lead, and eventually emerged victorious 63-59 with a couple of late steals and three-point baskets that turned around a four-point deficit in the game’s final minutes.

Two days later in the school’s first ever Elite Eight game, the Bulldogs revisited the same script and beat No. 2 seed Kansas State by jumping out to an early lead, pushing it to double digits in the second half, only to lose it with under five minutes to play before ultimately emerging victorious 63-56 in the end.

And just like that Butler became the Cinderella team of the 2010 NCAA tournament as they headed to the Final Four in their home city of Indianapolis to play Michigan State in the first national semifinal this past Saturday.

This time the Bulldogs fell behind early and found themselves in trouble even as they took a second half lead because two of the team’s best players, Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack, were shelved on the bench with injuries.

Despite only being able to convert one basket from the field in the final 10 minutes of the game, the Bulldogs came out on top of the No. 5 seed Spartans.

They did so in a large part because the team’s first major NBA prospect in decades, Gordon Hayward, carried Butler’s scoring and rebounding load and sunk a clutch late basket that gave the Bulldogs just enough of a cushion to pull out a 52-50 victory.

That brought the team with little size, little depth, and little national exposure before March all the way to the national championship game against its toughest opponent yet in Duke.

And from the opening tip—which Butler’s 6-foot-8 Matt Howard happened to win over Duke’s 7-foot-1 Brian Zoubek—until almost the final shot, the game did not disappoint and played out just like a Hollywood script.

Just like any classic sports movie, each character or player on the Butler team had his moment on Monday night.

First it was sophomore guard Shelvin Mack, the team’s second leading scorer and a player often overshadowed by Hayward, who took to center stage and kept the Bulldogs afloat in the early going.

While Butler struggled to make easy shots inside, Mack drained two tightly-guarded threes in the opening minutes that allowed the Bulldogs to get their feet under them and stay neck and neck with Duke.

Then it was the little-used 6-foot-1 3-point specialist, sophomore guard Zach Hahn—perhaps the only player on the team with more boyish looks than Hayward—who pulled the trigger on an insanely long three-point shot to supplement Mack’s early scoring on his only shot of the entire game.

Still, the Bulldogs soon found themselves in a 26-20 hole and Duke seemed poised to make a run that could turn the game into the rout that many expected.

That’s when 34-year-old Butler head coach Brad Stevens, taking part in his first Final Four against one of the winningest coaches of all time in his eighth national championship game on the other sideline, called for a timeout.

In an actual movie we would have been privy to whatever Stevens said to his team, but whatever he said worked. The Bulldogs reeled off seven straight points to reclaim the lead, 27-26.

With Howard in foul trouble—a theme of the tournament for Butler—senior Avery Jukes entered the game as his replacement. In his previous eight games combined, Jukes had scored all of 11 points. But playing in his final collegiate game, Jukes racked up 10 points in the first half while draining two 3-pointers that Duke dared him to hit by leaving him wide open beyond the arc.

Even as they struggled with easy inside shots, the Bulldogs headed to the locker room down by just a point, 33-32, thanks to their three-point shooting and the fact that they were out-rebounding the Blue Devils despite being significantly outsized.

The second half of the game continued to be a classic. Every possession seemed critical and every time one team scored the other answered right back. Butler never led by two and Duke never led by more than six in the entire game.

Just as Butler did against Michigan State in the semifinals, the Bulldogs saw their  shooting touch desert them in the second half. But this time they had a better answer to stay in the game—their star player, 6-foot-9 sophomore forward Hayward.

Throughout the tournament, everything that Hayward touched seemed to turn to gold, but on this night his jump shot was off and he made only two of 11 attempts from the field.

But like a hero in a sports movie, he found other ways to help his team.

He grabbed a team-high eight rebounds, played all but five seconds of the game, and most importantly, kept Butler alive in the second half by driving to the basket one possession after another and drawing fouls against Duke that sent him to the free throw line. For all of his struggles from the field, Hayward was a perfect 8-for-8 from the charity stripe.

Despite all of Butler’s efforts to keep the game close, it seemed to finally be slipping away from them when Duke senior guard Jon Scheyer was fouled on a two-point make and converted the three-point play from the free-throw line to give Duke a five point lead—its biggest of the second half—with just under four minutes to play.

It was time for one final player to take his role and breathe new life into the Bulldogs. And like any good movie, this one seemed to save its most troubled hero for last.

For as stellar as this tournament has been for Butler, it has been an awful struggle for Howard.

As a freshman, Howard played an integral role in Butler’s second trip in school history to the Sweet 16 and was the Horizon League freshman of the year. Last season as a sophomore, he was named the conference’s most outstanding player.

This year had been more of a struggle for Howard, but he was still a vital component of the team’s 20-game win streak to end the regular season and was Butler’s third leading scorer, averaging just over 11 points per game on the year.

In the NCAA tournament, however, Howard struggled mightily with fouls from the second round on, and it was a good night if he managed to stay out of foul trouble and on the floor for more than 20 minutes. To make matters worse, he suffered a mild concussion in the semifinal against Michigan State and was questionable for Monday night’s championship game.

Cleared to play by doctors, Howard started the game and was a key component of the Bulldogs’ early game plan. He worked hard to get good close looks at the basket and drew fouls on Duke’s big men, but he simply couldn’t get the ball to fall through the net from the field or from the free throw line, where the 80 percent shooter for his career went just 1-for-4

Then Howard’s Achilles’ heel struck again and he committed two fouls that sent him to the bench for nearly the final 12 minutes of the first half. When he came back to start the second half, he quickly committed his third foul, and after a brief rest Stevens took a risk and put him back on the floor only to see him commit his fourth foul almost immediately with still nearly three-quarters of the second half remaining.

At that point with only one more foul before he was disqualified and with his propensity to commit them within seconds of being put on the floor, Howard’s night, much like his tournament, seemed destined to end in disappointment.

With just under eight minutes to play, Stevens inserted Howard back into the game and tried to substitute him in and out of action so that he played on offense but sat on defense where he was more likely to foul. Howard soon rewarded his coach by drawing fouls against Duke on the offensive end and converting on all four of his free-throw attempts.

But it was in the game’s final three minutes with his team trailing by five that Howard finally shone in the tournament. He scored two critical hoops underneath the basket and grabbed a vital offensive rebound. His easy lay-in with under a minute to play cut Duke’s lead to 60-59 and put Butler in a position to win.

With under 35 seconds remaining and the shot clock turned off, Butler had the ball still trailing 60-59, looking for one last hero and one last shot to complete their Hollywood season.

The Bulldogs called timeout after Duke deflected the ball out of bounds with 13 seconds to play. On the in-bounds play Howard lobbed the ball deep into the backcourt to Hayward.

Just like that the script was set. The underdog Bulldogs had the ball in the hands of their best player with the game on the line. In the movie Hoosiers this is where Milan high school’s star, Jimmy Chitwood, drained a game winning shot as time expired to win the Indiana high school basketball championship in Hinkle Fieldhouse,

When Hayward drove to the right baseline, he was met by Duke’s tallest player, Zoubek, and as was only fitting giving the Bulldogs’ lack of size, was forced to loft a fadeaway shot over the opponent’s biggest Goliath, creating an image that seemed to come right off the big screen.

As Hayward’s shot left his hands it looked good. It looked as if it would drop in with four seconds to play and give Butler, in all likelihood, the national championship. But it was just a touch long and the ball rimmed off into the hands of Zoubek, who was promptly fouled with just over three seconds to play.

Zoubek made his first free throw and then missed the second on purpose to force Butler, which had no timeouts remaining, to rebound the ball and travel the length of the court in less than four seconds for a final shot.

It was Hayward who grabbed the rebound and managed to speed all the way to just inside of halfcourt before he launched the game’s final shot just in time.

One might refer to such a shot as a desperation heave, but it was one heck of an attempt with a world of potential in this case.

As the ball left Hayward’s hands and travelled through the air, Zoubek’s agonized expression told the story of just how perfectly poised Hayward’s shot seemed to be to swish through the net. But moments after he had let it go, Hayward’s shot banged off the backboard, grazed the rim and finally fell to the ground.

For a brief moment it seemed that Hayward might have just let go one of the most incredible shots in the history of college basketball and concluded the final scene of one of the greatest stories and games the sport had ever seen.

Instead, Butler and college basketball fans will just have to settle for a beautifully-scripted tale with a bittersweet conclusion.

Gordon Hayward throw a half-court shot at the buzzer as the crowd holds their breath when the ball went to the backboard and into the rim and then out. The Duke Blue Devils escape with a precarious two point win against heavy underdog the Butler Bulldogs. “I said yesterday that when you coach these guys, you can be at peace with whatever result you achieve from a won-loss standpoint because of what they gave — they gave everything we had, we just came up a bounce short. There’s certainly nothing to hang your head about. I told them in there, what they’ve done, what they did together, will last longer than one night, regardless of the outcome.” Said the 33 year Butler coach Brad Stevens. Butler had only 4,200 student s with a very tiny basketball program compared to Duke’s 13,457 students and has a huge basketball culture having gone to numerous NCAA tournaments grabbing 4 National titles for the past 30 years under Coach Mike Krzyzewski. It was another epic battle between David and Goliath but this time Goliath followed a different script. The big three John Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith delivered the decisive offensive blow but in the end it was the Blue Devils defense that won the game. They hold Butler to only 34 percent shooting but most importantly it was Brian Zoubek’s defense disrupting a driving Hayward with only 3.9 seconds remaining for a potential game winning shot.
When the going gets tough Duke relies on their defense the defense that took them from 35-5 and back to the National Championships as the number 1 seed.
We all love underdogs and it could be a fitting ending to a remarkable season Butler has been through. Nobody expected them to go that far and when they beat Michigan State by only two points everybody thought they couldn’t match Duke’s high intensity basketball level. The national finals ended as what I expected the Duke will win the game because of their defense but Butler’s resiliency will give them a tough time. In fact the game was only decided on the last second on a half court shot by Hayward.
Defense wins games but resurgence wins the hearts of many.
A round of applause to both teams they gave us one helluva game.

The 2010 NCAA national championship trophy will wiggle its way into the trophy case somewhere at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C. 

For the Duke Blue Devils, good things don't come in threes. They come in fours. 

Celebrating its first title since 2001, No. 1 seed Duke is on top of college basketball's infinity, yet again.

Well, kinda.

Duke has the title. But its counterpart in the NCAA championship game has the heart strings. And the lifelong recollections. 

Butler captivated. Those pesky Bulldogs from Indianapolis lost. By two points.

Two measly, contemptuous points.

At the end of the evening, Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, and Brian Zoubek raised the hardware, while the hometown boys from Butler U. had the short drive home to contemplate "what if?" scenarios for the rest of their lives. 

Therein lies the beauty of the NCAA tournament. 

Sometimes, the loser is the winner. Sometimes, the winner is the loser. 

Ask any Butler player, coach or fan, they'd much rather take the most unforeseeable national title run in collegiate history than the pity party. 

Nobody likes a pity party, let alone a team a-few-inches-too-high-off-the-backboard. 

What if, right?

If that's the way you proceed to view the world you live in. Those who watched the 2010 NCAA tournament saw a small liberal arts school from Indianapolis take each and every opponent that came along and provide a 40-minute noogie. 

The trendy double-digit seed in the first round? UTEP was supposed to have too much athleticism and power down low for Butler.

All Butler did was sink 13 three-pointers and leave the Miners headed back to El Paso, Texas with all that burnt orange as its only solemn company. 

Butler barely survived Murray State, thanks to Gordon Hayward's heady and treacherous gamble to strip a Racer with the game under 10 ticks left. 

Syracuse. Yada.

Kansas State. Yada.

Michigan State. Yada. 

Coming into Monday's national title game, the Bulldogs had won 25 straight games. Twenty-five straight Ws. Not even Wes Johnson, Andy Rautins, and Scoop Jardine had an answer for Butler's kryptonite defense. 

Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente were forced into early retirement for the time being.

And for all the screaming, clawing, pissing, moaning, hugging, and loving Tom Izzo could do, Sparta had no answer for Butler.

Perfection set in motion, right? Wasn't this the way things are supposed to play out?

Butler knocking off the much-scorned national powerhouse Duke to top the improbable mountain on high. 

Sign here, please.

We, as sports fans, are suckers for the impossible. We enjoy being told we can't do it, or it can't happen. 

Who in their wildest of wildest reverie would have envisioned Butler University bringing the nation to its knees with one desperation half-court heave?

You wanna talk about puckering up? Pfft. Millions couldn't bother to find their own pulse, let alone bother to kick-start their lungs into working gear once again.

Hayward went from Horizon League multi-skilled rangy star to probable top-15 pick.

Shelvin Mack kept on shooting and making three-pointers.

Matt Howard kept on channeling his inner-70s alter ego and pouring in 100 percent effort, despite being saddled with foul trouble throughout the tournament.

Ronald Nored kept on anticipating drives to the hoops and swiping the ball. 

And Brad Stevens kept on keeping on. Keeping his cool when hell had frozen over. In every single tournament game, the Bulldogs had trailed sometime in the second half.

Stevens, the 33-year-old seemingly anti-typical NCAA college basketball coach, smiled and coached his players to a national championship game, and did so in historic fashion.

As Hayward muscled in after Zoubek intentionally missed his second free throw with 3.9 seconds left, the tournament's household name flung a half-court shot with repercussions so huge, Jimmy V. was up there in the hereafter screaming at the top of his lungs trying to guide the toss right through the twine.

The shot hit a few inches too high and to the right and came careening off the backboard and off the front of the rim. 

Stevens fell to his knees. So did I.

What made this team great was the fact that the Bulldogs continued to grind out wins and you looked back and didn't even know how they did it. No SportsCenter Top 10 plays or Diaper Dandies. Who knows. Maybe that's why they flourished for so long. 

No one could put a finger on it. They were consistently stable. 

I didn't know where Butler was before the season started. The only player I had heard of was Howard, and I, along with thousands of other smug, presumptuous sports fans, picked Butler to lose in the first round.

Boy, am I glad they didn't. 

Twenty-some-odd years from now, this team will be the subject of an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary. For all the right reasons, too.

And what about Stevens? Imagine him on recruiting trips now. 

"Hi, I'm Brad Stevens and I want to tell you about Butler University basketball."

If Gordon Hayward's half-court heave would have fallen last night, Butler's improbable gauntlet run to history would have been raised to college basketball's Valhalla to sit and be worshipped with the rest of the mythical stories of past tournaments: the 1983 "Cardiac Pack," Villanova over Georgetown, UCLA's 10 of 12 run, and Christian Laettner's turnaround.

But it didn't.

Instead of a historic victory, the tournament has once again claimed the body of another valiant warrior trying to slay the six-game dragon. With this fairy tale coming to an end, it seems that the author of so many great stories might have retired his pen as well.

As predicted by the Big Ten commissioner, it seems that on April 29, the NCAA basketball tournament will be expanded to 96 teams. However, if this happens, Cinderella nation can kiss goodbye to possible chances of Butler-esque runs.

The proposed tournament layout would give the top eight seeds in each region a one-game bye allowing the No. 9 through 24 seeds to play it out in the first weekend. The nearly impossible six-game journey would become one more game harder to achieve.

Although this year's Butler team would have escaped the extra game, the Murray State Racers that fought so valiantly against them might not have made it to the next round in order to face Vanderbilt. Butler would have probably faced a more difficult opponent than Murray State, possibly leading to the demise of the Bulldogs.

The 96-team tournament would essentially become like a gladiator arena, allowing the smaller and weaker teams to fight it out in the initial rounds, while the powerhouses judge over them, deciding their fate. Imagine if Northern Iowa had an extra game before playing Kansas; would they have the energy to knock off the favorite to win the championship? 

If the tournament expands, it will no longer mean anything to make the tournament. Yes, the six or eight teams that deserve to be in the tournament will be included, but 24 other teams that shouldn't be will have to be included as well.

A perfect example is the University of North Carolina—a great program, arguably the best in basketball history, that fell on hard times. The Tar Heels were barely at the .500 mark at the end of the regular season. However, their play in the Not Important Tournament showed they were probably one of the best 96 teams in the nation.

UNC did not in any way display that they were tournament material; however they would make it in the new system, as would many other subpar teams.

The 2010 NCAA basketball tournament is the perfect example of why no expansion is needed. Although I've only been alive for almost 19 years, this is the best tournament I have ever seen (and that's almost all of them).

There were more upsets than ever before, as close as I've ever seen to a lock for the Final Four doesn't reach the Sweet 16, and a Cinderella picked to lose in the first round by half of America is one shot away from the best story in history.

Although people's brackets may say differently, the tournament was perfect. Plain and simple.

That begs the question: Why would you change something that is perfect?