Butler Basketball

The 2-time defending national runner up Butler Bulldogs began defending that title by flopping in its first exhibition game against a division-II school 53-50. Northern State hung around, while the Bulldogs gave away every chance the Wolves gave them to put away its home opener Wednesday evening.

Andrew Smith scored 19 points and Chase Stigall added nine, in a game where Head Coach Brad Stevens used seemingly every possible lineup rotation that he could come up with. At critical moments the Bulldogs at times featured only freshmen and sophomores on the floor.

I have learned to never question the coaching philosophy of Stevens. The man has been to two consecutive national title games, and is without question the greatest young mind in college basketball, but for heaven sakes, he has never cared about early season results.

The Bulldogs dropped an early season game to Evansville last year, and the year before they lost to UAB. Northern State is not the quality of either. If it weren't for Stevens, I would be worried, but like I said the man couldn't care less about results, especially at this juncture of the season.

In the hundreds of speaking engagements Stevens has accepted since the success he's lead the Horizon League school to, he has undoubtedly said in just about every one is that it is about the journey and not the destination. There are ups-and-downs. There will be disappointments and there will be surprises.

While Stevens took the blame for the loss in the postgame press conference, this loss is what it is. It was the first time that this group of six newcomers stepped onto the court with Ronald Nored, Andrew Smith, Chase Stigall, Garrett Butcher, and other final four Bulldog contributors. The result in the end is not what matters.

Assistant coach Matthew Graves said it best. "Our freshmen learned what it means to play college basketball tonight," Graves told 1070 the Fan in Indianapolis after the game.

They gave up 12 offensive rebounds and shot just over 50-percent from the line. If you want to beat anybody at the collegiate level, those statistics won't fly and that is what those kids learned Wednesday night.

After the game, Stevens, matter of factly as always said, "We are here tonight to prepare for this season." Every game has a purpose, and win or lose, that was the purpose of the matchup with this tiny school in South Dakota.

I can hear the critics already. Butler was the little engine that could in 2010 and 2011. This version, led by the little known, like Smith, Khyle Marshal, and freshman Roosevelt Jones will never be able to duplicate what this program has done the last two years. In fact, it will probably never happen again, right?

Go ahead, keep doubting Stevens' kids and his philosophies. After all, it's gotten them this far hasn't it. 

Gordon Hayward was great.

Shelvin Mack was scintillating.

Matt Howard was marvelous.

So, who is going to be the next Bulldogs star?

It is very possible that it could be former Arkansas Razorback Rotnei Clarke. CBSSports.com reports that Clarke has decided to transfer to Butler and play his final season for Brad Stevens.

Clarke elected earlier this spring to leave Arkansas following the coaching change that removed John Pelphrey and replaced him with Mike Anderson.

Listed at 6'0", Clarke has the stature of a point guard but the skills of a shooting guard.

Clarke is one of, if not, the best perimeter shooters in the nation. In his three seasons at Arkansas, he attempted 653 shots from beyond the arc, connecting on 42 percent of his three-pointers.

In the final part of last season, Clarke elevated his already superb game even further, averaging over 20 points per game and shooting better than 50 percent from downtown.

With transferring, Clarke will have to sit out this next season. But when he steps back on the court for the 2012-13 season, could he become the next Jimmer Fredette?

From a talent standpoint, that is a possibility. Clarke has the accuracy and range of this past season's national player of the year.

What might be a challenge to this thought could be the offensive scheme of Clarke's new head coach, Brad Stevens.

Stevens' brand of basketball is a deliberate style of working the ball and the shot clock on most possessions.

Fredette flourished in a BYU offense that pushed the ball at every opportunity and looked to put the ball up as soon as a decent look came along.

There's a good chance that Clarke will see action at both backcourt positions. Even when he plays point guard, he will be just as much of a scoring threat than a playmaker.

Even still, don't bet on seeing Fredette's video game-like stats duplicated in Indy a year from now.

Losing back-to-back NCAA championships must take a toll on a player, but when that player is also the star player and is still predicted not to be drafted, that could be the icing on the cake. Matt Howard has been one of the best players in college basketball over the past two seasons, leading Butler to places they never dreamed of going to once, let alone twice. The senior was one of the hardest workers in the country and proved that he could compete with anyone. The chart below shows how consistent Matt was from when he entered Butler as a freshman until his last game as a senior. 

SEASON	MIN	PTS	REB	AST	BLK	TO	A/T	STL	FG%
2007-2008	24.5	12.3	5.5	.9	1.1	1.4	.62	.7	.583
2008-2009	27.8	14.8	6.8	1.1	1.5	1.6	.69	.8	.550
2009-2010	25.2	11.6	5.2	.8	.6	1.6	.50	.6	.481
2010-2011	31.0	16.4	7.7	1.4	.6	1.7	.85	1.1	.471

Last season, Howard was the main inside presence for Butler and he was able to play with his back to the basket and become a solid rebounder. Howard is also one of the best screen setters in the country, and is extremely confident in his passing abilities. 

Howard is still undersized for the NBA-post (weighing in at 225 pounds), which was clear in his struggles in the National Championship Game against Connecticut's top post athletes. Though he works hard all over the floor, his below-average strength, explosiveness and quickness limited him in college and could limit him at the next level.

However, Howard is one of the smartest players in this years draft and always plays with a sense of urgency. If I was a general manger, I would love to have a hard nose guy that could play 10 to 15 minutes a game and give you everything he had.

By taking a risk on this guy, you know that he will work his tail off and make everyone around him better. Howard is nowhere close to a first round pick, but a late second round selection could be possible. 

Teams like Cleveland and Sacramento could use another physical presence and I see them as likely destinations for Howard. If Howard does get drafted, he will be a model player for that franchise and will contribute some way or another. 

Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard led the Butler Bulldogs on yet another improbable run to the National Championship game, but that doesn't mean they're guaranteed to be successful at the next level.

In fact, Matt Howard probably won't even get drafted.  He had a solid four-year career and saved his best season for last.  

As a senior, he averaged career highs in points with 16.4, rebounds with 7.7, and three-point percentage at just under 40.

Those numbers aren't bad, but he put them up as a Horizon League player, meaning he faced significantly worse competition than even Jimmer Fredette did.

If you were an NBA scout, would you be excited about a power forward who averaged 14 points and six rebounds a game over four years in that conference?

Also consider the fact that he's undersized.  He's listed at 6'8", but my eyes tell me that's a stretch of an inch or two.

He's not fast or terribly quick, and he doesn't have great athleticism to make up for his lack of traditional NBA big man size.

What Howard does have in abundance is heart.  He plays every second he's on the floor with a determination that cannot be ignored.

If he wants to play in the NBA, I can't imagine him putting in anything less than his best effort.

If someone takes a chance on him in the second round, it will be because of his attitude, but I don't see him being any more than an Eduardo Najera-type player.

As for Shelvin Mack, he could very well become a solid NBA point guard.  He's not an elite athlete and needs a lot of work on his passing and court vision, but he has some intangibles in place.

At 6'3" and 215 lbs, he has great size for a point guard.  Plus, he's strong, knows how to lead a team, and is deceptively quick with the ball.

Prior to the title game against Connecticut, a lot of mock drafts had Mack being selected at the end of the first round.

Unfortunately for Mack, that game exposed some things that had to worry NBA scouts and executives.  

He had a hard time against players with length on the perimeter, and couldn't finish inside against Connecticut's bigs.

Of course, none of that will matter in 2011 if Mack decides to return to Butler for his senior season.  He's still undecided on his draft status.

Both Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack are fantastic college players.  I have a hard time seeing either of them as starters in the NBA.

But if there's one thing we've learned about these guys in the last couple years, it's to never count them out.

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It's been one week since Butler fell to Connecticut in the 2011 NCAA Championship Game, leaving the entire nation to wonder for a second consecutive year whether Cinderella would ever ride home in a carriage rather than be stranded in a pumpkin at the Final Four.

This year's edition of March Madness, which was about as crazy as it's ever been thanks in large part to the surprising runs made by the eighth-seeded Bulldogs and the 11th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth Rams, closed with a whimper as Kemba Walker and UConn strode past Brad Stevens' punchless bunch in the second half on the way to a 53-41 victory.

Now, there's plenty to be said about the Huskies, who will return plenty of talent next season with or without Kemba but who may find themselves weighed down by NCAA sanctions in the wake of investigations into various recruiting improprieties on the part of Hall-of-Fame coach Jim Calhoun, but we'll leave that age-old debate about the incongruities of college athletics for another occasion.

What's been lost somewhat in the aftermath of the ho-hum conclusion in Houston is the question of where Butler goes from here.

The Long Road Back to the Final Four

It's rare enough for a small school to see its way through to the Sweet 16 or even the Elite Eight. It's another thing entirely for such a team to sneak its way into the Final Four.

It's an even greater anomaly still for a team from a non-BCS conference to play in consecutive national title games like Butler has done the past two years.

As if reaching the NCAA final wasn't tough enough in 2010, the Bulldogs had the odds stacked squarely against them this time around without the services of Horizon League All-Defensive performer Willie Veasley and league player of the year Gordon Hayward, who entered the 2010 NBA Draft after his sophomore season and was taken by the Utah Jazz with the ninth overall pick.

The impact of their absences showed throughout Butler's up and down 2010-11 season, particularly in losses to the likes of Evansville, Milwaukee, Valparaiso and Youngstown State.

Nonetheless, the Bulldogs still managed to tie for the Horizon League regular season title and win their conference tournament, from which point Butler rode the experience of seasoned veterans like Shelvin Mack, Matt Howard and Ronald Nored all the way to the Final Four.

Odds Are Already Stacked, With Or Without Mack

So, after back-to-back trips to the ball, can Cinderella fit into that slipper for a three-peat?

Well, if you thought two times as the runners up was unlikely for Butler, the third time is about as far from a charm as they come.

Brad Stevens will be without the services of five seniors, three of whom—front court scrapper Matt Howard, sharp shooter Zach Hahn and starting guard Shawn Vanzant—were key cogs in Butler's magical March Madness machinery.

There is also quite a bit of uncertainty surrounding star junior Shelvin Mack, who has yet to decide whether or not he will forfeit his senior season and jump into the 2011 NBA Draft pool. Mack's stock soared with each successive step that Butler took through the tourney, as the 6'3" guard from Lexington, Kentucky averaged 20.3 points while knocking down 23 three-pointers—the fourth-most all time by a player in a single tournament.

With Mack, Butler is a likely top-25 team that just might be in the mix for another deep run through March and possibly into April.

Without him, the Bulldogs would be hard-pressed to come away with the Horizon League title for a sixth year in a row.

Plenty of Reason For Optimism

Not that the cupboard would be entirely bare either way. With or without Mack, the Bulldogs will return starting center Andrew Smith and guard Ronald Nored as well as reserve guard Chase Stigall and impact freshman Khyle Marshall.

Additionally, Brad Stevens has a strong recruiting class headed to Hinkle Fieldhouse in the fall, including 3-star prospects Roosevelt Jones and Kameron Woods, Indiana native Andy Smeathers and Australian import Jackson Aldridge.

If "Mack Attack" does take his talents to the pros, it's expected that Stevens will offer a scholarship to 5'10" guard Anthony Hickey, this year's Mr. Basketball in the state of Kentucky.

And, of course, let's not forget about Coach Stevens, who is arguably the brightest of the many young stars in the coaching ranks of college basketball today. The "baby-faced" coach has already amassed 117 wins, four Horizon League titles and two trips to the Final Four in just four seasons since being promoted following the departure of Todd Lickliter to the University of Iowa.

All before his 36th birthday, mind you. If that weren't enough, even the late, great John Wooden, a fellow native of the state of Indiana, had praise for Stevens in an article written by Yahoo! Sports columnist Dan Wetzel, saying of Stevens' Bulldogs, "I enjoy watching [him] and very much enjoy their style of play...It looks much different than most other teams today."

Whether or not any or all of this is enough to keep Butler in the hunt for a trip to New Orleans for the 2012 Final Four remains to be seen. Certainly the return of Shelvin Mack would do wonders to promote the Bulldogs' chances of returning to the national spotlight, though there will be plenty of people watching Butler closely and scrutinizing the team's every move throughout the 2011-12 season regardless of who is around.

The only surety regarding next season's Butler Bulldogs is this: they will play their tails off and they won't be taking anybody by surprise. 

Hello, college basketball fans!

It's now two years in a row that Butler has made the NCAA title game. This year, however, their NCAA bid was in jeopardy until near the end of the season (at one point the Bulldogs were just 6-5 in the Horizon). I'm not 100 percent sure that had Butler been upset in the Horizon Tournament they would have even made the NCAA tournament.

In addition, Missouri State of the Missouri Valley Conference went 15-3 in conference, lost in the conference championship game, and were denied a bid to the NCAA's. They are the first MVC regular season champion to miss the NCAA Tournament in a long time.

As always, it is harder for mid-major teams to get at-large bids to the NCAA Tournament. The usual "who did you beat?" argument hurts teams that just don't get the chance to play top teams and are often dragged down by bad opponents (especially if they lose to them).

The key difference between the power conferences and mid-majors is the overall level of competition. I have in the past proposed realignment of conferences to allow stronger teams to "move up" conferences. I have now come up with a really radical proposal without a massive realignment.

This proposal involves the Horizon League, the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC), and the Mid American Conference (MAC).

Each team in those conferences will play every team in their conference just once. In addition, the 32 teams will be placed into one of four divisions grouped by strength and play all the teams in their division once as well. Conference opponents would play each other twice if they are in the same division and once if they are in opposite divisions.

Teams in the MVC and Horizon would play nine conference games and seven division games for a total of 16 games. Teams in the MAC would play eleven conference games and seven division games for a total of 18 games.

This seems to be a good compromise between maintaining the individual conferences but allowing for stronger schedules for the stronger teams (the NCAA at large bid candidates) and allows the weaker teams to play each other. For example, Butler would only have to play Youngstown State once instead of twice and instead get to play Northern Iowa. Youngstown State by contrast will get to play all its conference foes and weaker foes from the other conference.

To determine initial divisional placement, I took the winning percentage in conference over the past four seasons (courtesy of ESPN). The top eight highest winning percentages were placed in Division 1, the next eight in division 2, and so on. (Ties were broken by NCAA Tournament appearances).

Divisions:

Division 1: Butler, Kent State, Northern Iowa, Akron, Cleveland State, Wright State, Creighton, Miami Ohio

Division 2: Milwaukee, Western Michigan, Green Bay, Illinois State, Wichita State, Ohio, Indiana State, Drake

Division 3: Valparaiso, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Missouri State, Ball State, Bradley, Eastern Michigan

Division 4: Southern Illinois, Detroit, Loyola Illinois, Evansville, Northern Illinois, Illinois Chicago, Youngstown State, Toledo

Divisions By conference:

Horizon:

Division 1: Butler, Cleveland State, Wright State

Division 2: Milwaukee, Green Bay

Division 3: Valparaiso

Division 4: Detroit, Loyola Illinois, Illinois Chicago, Youngstown State

MVC:

Division 1: Northern Iowa, Creighton

Division 2: Illinois State, Wichita State, Indiana State, Drake

Division 3: Missouri State, Bradley

Division 4: Southern Illinois, Evansville

MAC:

Division 1: Kent State, Akron, Miami Ohio

Division 2: Western Michigan, Ohio

Division 3: Bowling Green, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Ball State, Eastern Michigan

Division 4: Northern Illinois, Toledo

After every two seasons, the divisions are recalculated based on data from the previous four seasons.

Here are the issues that have to be discussed:

1) Do division games count as conference games or only the single games in the conference? Would it be unusual for a conference to only play "nine" conference games? How would this effect the NCAA statistics on conference record/RPI vs. non conference record/RPI?

2) How would the conferences determine seeds for their tournaments? Would they consider only the conference games or conference + division games? If they use division games, they probably have to consider the strength of division as part of the equation (a 11-5 record from a team in Division 1 should be better than a 12-4 record from a team in Division 2).

But the overall result should be better competition for all teams in the three conferences. It also allows the stronger teams from each conference to build up their overall strength of schedule and improve their chances of getting an at large bid. This is kind of like Bracket Buster but on a grander scale.

I think this works out well for all three conferences.

This year, Butler had to play four horrible teams (based on last four years) and that sunk their RPI (and affected their seed). Under this proposal, they would only play those four once a year and then get to play better teams from the MVC and MAC instead. 

On the other hand, if a MVC or MAC team beats Butler it gives those teams an extra quality win. If Missouri State got to play some better teams, they would have had a better chance to get in.

If this doesn't work, I think a good move for the MVC is to invite Butler and for Butler to accept. Historically, the MVC is a better league and Butler would have a better chance at an at-large bid if they fail to win the tournament. They should also invite St. Louis as well (they seem out of place in the A-10).

I would love to see a mid-major team like Butler or Northern Iowa get an invite from one of the big conferences but we know those conferences care more about pigskin than hoops (Nebraska to Big Ten and TCU to Big East?). So the best way for these teams to get into the NCAA Tournament (outside of winning their conferences) would be to upgrade their level of competition.

If the idea works, maybe other conferences could form alliances as well (MWC and WCC, A-10 and Colonial, etc). Maybe even power conferences would jump on board. We could have the Big Ten and ACC combine and instead of Illinois playing Northwestern and Nebraska twice, they could play Duke and North Carolina (assuming they are in the "top" division").

At any rate, Butler has won approximately 86 percent of its conference games (62-10) in the past four seasons. They are being weighed down by the Horizon League. Whether it involves an upgrade to the MVC or A-10, something needs to be done. One of these years Butler is going to lose in the Horizon Tournament and not make the NCAA's and it will be a shame.

It was one of the most exciting March Madness Tournaments ever.

We had close-game finishes, bizarre endings, lights out shooting, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith, busted brackets across the country, every game on television, and it's capped off with two mid-majors making it to the Final Four.

For six rounds the tournament gave me everything that I expected and more. Then, there was last night’s championship game.

On one side of the court was the University of Connecticut.  A team on an improbable run that began with an unprecedented five wins in the Big East Tournament. The Huskies were led by perhaps the best player in the country Kemba Walker and an emerging freshman in Jeremy Lamb.

While on the other side of the court you had the Butler Bulldogs. The Bulldogs, led by their own superstar Shelvin Mack and the team’s heartbeat senior Matt Howard, willed itself to the championship game for the second straight year.

We started with 68 and had made the journey to the final two, Connecticut vs. Butler. The Huskies are the power house in the world of basketball from the Big East; a conference with 11 teams making it to the Big Dance. The Bulldogs are the mid-major Cinderella from the Horizon League and won its conference tournament to receive the automatic bid and represent the little guys of the Horizon League.

Connecticut and Butler were the last two standing to give us a much-unexpected matchup. The Huskies were a team that didn’t even make the tournament last year and predicted to finish on the bottom side of their conference. Meanwhile, Butler had lost a key player in Gordon Hayward to the NBA and not many really believed that they could make the same run two years in a row. Heck, I took Old Dominion to beat them. Big mistake, but that certainly was not the last of them by me.

Regardless of what we thought about both teams at the beginning of the season, they were the last two standing. Butler’s Brad Stephens had done it again, becoming the youngest coach to reach his second Final Four at the age of 34. Jim Calhoun was attempting history of his own; a victory would make him the oldest coach to win the championship at 68. He would also become just the fifth coach to get to the top three or more times, joining an elite company that includes John Wooden, Adolph Rupp, Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight.

With so much at stake and both teams defying the odds gave us what I thought would mark the conclusion of a memorable tournament with a great matchup in an even better venue in Houston, Texas at Reliant Stadium.

However, nothing is ever guaranteed and this year’s championship would be anything but memorable. At the end of the first both teams combined for a mere 41 total points and I had to make sure that I had not traveled back in time to the 1940s.

In the second half it did not really get better for either team, but it would get even worse for the Butler Bulldogs. Nothing fell for the Bulldogs and the Huskies overpowered Butler with a 51 to 40 advantage in rebounds and 10 to two advantage in blocks.

Sure, Kemba Walker was not his superstar self. But he had help from freshman Jeremy Lamb and sophomore Alex Oriakhi. Walker had a game-high 16, but it was Lamb’s 12, and a double-double from Oriakhi with 11 points and 11 rebounds that delivered the Huskies their third national championship.

It was Connecticut’s defense that won the game, especially Lamb’s effort on Butler’s Shelvin Mack and the Huskies frontcourt being too much for Matt Howard to have any effect on the game. Mack finished with just 13 points scoring only one point when Lamb had the defensive assignment. Howard shot just 1-for-13 from the field with seven points.

Even if Mack and Howard had been their normal selves, Butler would still have had a difficult time coming up with the win. The Bulldogs shot a tournament worst 3-of-31 from two-point field goals. In fact, Butler missed its first 21 shots in the paint. They shot 12-of-64 for the game, 18 percent and mustard only 41 points, narrowly beating out Oklahoma State’s 36-point showing in the 1949 championship.

Connecticut did not shoot much better, but they managed to get the basket in the hoop at a much better consistency than their opponent.

So, here we are. One of the worst championship games ever to be played, following one of the most exciting tournaments.

It has left me wondering is it worth it to root for the underdog? Do non-BCS schools really deserve a shot to try and compete with BCS schools? Is the March Madness Tournament really a good way to compare BCS and non-BCS schools? Does this loss take away from Butler’s last two years, or this year’s other Cinderella, VCU?

For me, I will still cheer for the underdogs. I think non-BCS schools can and should have the opportunity to compete with BCS schools. The March Madness is not a good instrument to use in comparing BCS and non-BCS schools because college football and basketball have two very different seasons.

A win during the regular season in basketball does not compare to the same marginal value of a win during the regular season in football, rivalries and upsets aside. But at the end of the day, if you have two teams that are competing in the same division with both standing the tallest at the end, then both should be given the same chance to be called the best.

After painfully watching this year's tournament title game, I was thinking what most people thought:  Awful shooting leads to a less exciting game to watch.  I saw myself forget what happened for a seven to eight minute stretch, and the score hardly changed.  I came to expect Butler to miss most shots they put up, and in turn, UConn caught a little of that same bug.  

A lot of it I have to credit the defense for both squads, because I knew it would be a challenge to break 60, but I was surprised at UConn's defense against Butler's offense.  I expected Brad Stevens and their experienced team from last year to run a sound offense and put up points—if the ball went in the net.  From this expectation, I hoped UConn's offensive firepower would make up for defensive inefficiencies.  

With the defense the cause for some of the offensive struggles, I can't help but think the long week off has something to do with it also.  

The first and second round games start Thursday/Saturday (or Friday/Sunday), and the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight start Thursday/Saturday (or Friday/Sunday).  This means teams get one day of rest in each weekend of games and only four days of rest between the weekends.  

There are already a lot of underdog teams to lose to high rank teams in the second weekend because they just cannot keep up the intensity of the first two games after four days off.  With that said, why give the final four teams an extra six days?  

Granted, we don't see this low scoring every year, but it is a good opportunity to propose this change.  I think it is easier to carry over any momentum teams have in getting there, and the shooting will be much improved.  Players have less time to think about everything surrounding them, and they have to get acquainted with the court faster.  

Another reason why I bring this up is because a Big East team that goes through the gauntlet of the conference tournament has the same layoff as between each weekend of games.  

With that in mind, teams are expected to play their best six days after playing in the Elite Eight?  When I see Big East teams continue to lose early (with the exception of UConn this year), it makes me think that it would be more exciting if the the Final Four was earlier.

If the Final Four started just two days earlier, the teams would play a little better, and even though we may not see their best (as basketball is streaky as a whole), there's a better chance of seeing teams perform better from raw talent than tactful game plans. 

Also, this may be just this year, but by the time the Final Four came around, I almost forgot they still had to play the games.  I had already turned more to baseball because the hype just isn't what the Final Four used to be.  Even the semifinal games, which were great to watch, didn't have that feeling to them.

I know the tournament does this Saturday/Monday because of TV ratings and travel purposes, but this is an insight to make the game better to watch for most other Americans watching the game at home, a bar or viewing party.  

After a sleepless night, Butler coaches and players will get to their feet today, shaking their heads.

After Connecticut won the national championship game, Kemba Walker said, “It was like playing in a dream.” Butler, too, felt like they were dreaming, except theirs was nightmare.

If coach Brad Stevens would have been presented with this postgame stat sheet (see below) before the finale, he would have taken it and in his heart known his team would be national champions.

• Hold Connecticut to 34.9 percent shooting 

• The Huskies make one of 11 three-point shots

• Commit five fewer turnovers than UConn

• Have a 19-to-15 offensive rebounding edge

But the one aspect Stevens or his team could not account for was Connecticut’s defense making them colder than a New England nor'easter storm.

The Bulldogs were a horrifying 12-for-64 shooting, which is 18.8 percent. Consider this: If Butler just has an off-night shooting, they are 22-for-64, 34.3 percent and those 10 extra baskets have them cutting down the nets.

Instead, they have an historically dreadful night.

Think about it: Butler was 3-for-31 inside the arc—3-for-31! The previous fewest two-point buckets in a championship games was nine by Oklahoma State 62 years ago.

Of the 52 errant shots the team in the dark uniforms missed, roughly 10-12 were very close to going through the net as near misses, but the others were stone-cold attempts, missing their target by six or more inches. Only the local Houston bricklayers would have appreciated such a performance.

Though there was no official monitoring of this during the NCAA title tilt, the contest probably required a number of basketballs since all the clanging off the rims likely resulted in a loss of air pressure in the balls and NCAA officials were ferociously pumping the spheres back up to normal pressure standards.

In the end, Connecticut never sniffed 60 points in either conflict in Houston and will be leaving town with two made three-point shots in 80 minutes of basketball and the championship hardware.

The Huskies defense deserves the lion’s share of credit; however, CBS analyst Clark Kellogg said it best about Butler shooting: “Unparalleled ineptitude.”

For two straight seasons, the Butler Bulldogs have been the feel-good story of college basketball.  They were the mid-major that could.  A year ago, they were one heartbreaking, just-off-the-rim shot away from winning the national championship.  They were proof that a little school can compete on an equal footing with the big boys.

But Monday night, Butler played what can only be described as one of the most horrendous games imaginable.

Every “H” word that I can think of can be applied to Butler’s performance: hideous, horrible, hopeless an historic.  Officially, it was the worst shooting percentage in the history of the NCAA title game: 18.8 percent.  The Bulldogs only made three two-point baskets all game.

The final score—Connecticut 53, Butler 41—was nowhere near indicative of the way this game was actually played.  And the 12-point margin could not possibly have been wider.

As bad as I feel as a Butler fan, I feel even worse for Butler’s players.   They will now forever be remembered for this pathetically bad game.  What riles me the most is the fact that as poorly as they played, this remained a winnable game even to the final few minutes.  And if you add up all of the point-blank, anemically-missed layups, Butler more than had a chance to spring the upset.  

That’s why it was so hard to get up this morning.  It was especially difficult waking up knowing that I would have to listen to the smug, self-important assessments coming from ESPN’s Dick Vitale and Jay Bilas, whose bias for the major schools throughout the tournament, and dismissal of the so-called mid-majors, was galling.

That said, most of the credit for Butler’s nightmare should be accorded to the UConn Huskies.   UConn’s taller, more athletic players intimidated Butler right from the very start, even though the Huskies shot only 34 percent from the field themselves.  They completely shut down Butler’s two stars, Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack.  Neither player ever looked comfortable taking his shots, mainly because UConn's length obscured their vision all game long.  Howard made only one of 13 shots.   Mack was just 4 of 15.

And the icing on UConn’s third national championship was spread by magnificent point guard Kemba Walker, whose leadership and will to win was contagious, helping to instill all the confidence his younger teammates would ever need.

In closing, Connecticut was easily the better team Monday night.  As a disheartened, stunned Butler booster, that’s about all I have to say—until next year.

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