After coming off an appearance in the 2009-2010 NCAA Championship game, and within inches of winning against Duke, who would have thought that little old Butler would come into another championship title game, and have a legit shot at winning? Too bad Butler picked that night to go cold at shooting, and never could get going. But that was simply a superb two year run for the school that has only 4,000 students, practices way early in the morning, has two guys in the NBA in the past two years, and has their own Butler Way.
The Bulldogs were off to a shaky start in the beginning of the season, but then things got rolling. And when Butler gets rolling, good things happen. Heading into a game on Febuary 15th against Cleveland State, the Bulldogs were 14-9 overall, and had a three game losing streak. What did Butler do? Go out and win 73-61, and rattled off 7 wins in a row to head into the Horizon League Tourney. Ending up 13-5 in the league, and capturing yet another Horizon League regular season title. But the Bulldogs weren't satisifed, they went and won the Horizon League Tournament, and secured an eighth seed for the NCAA Tourney.
The dreaded 8-9 game in the NCAA Tourney is one where I don't ever think it's an "upset" if the ninth seed would win since pretty much the teams are that close. But if you win that game, you will end up going against the number one seed, and that's always a tough game. It didn't help that Butler was going against a big Old Dominion team that many were saying would take care of Butler. But they pulled off the victory, and won 60-58 and heading into a match with Pittsburgh in the next round. This game was a battle back and forth. It got crazy in the final minutes and even final seconds of fouls were being called and guys were going to the line.
Matt Howard gets to the line after getting fouled in the act of shooting and takes Butler on to the Sweet Sixteen. Butler took care of Wisconsin to keep moving along. Facing a tough Florida team with the right to get to the Final Four...again. This game goes into overtime, but the Butler Bulldogs do it again, and pull out a victory. Advancing to the Final Four two years in a row, you couldn't write this up in a movie. Butler faced another team that probably shouldn't have been there in the Final Four, Virginia Commonwealth University. Two mid major teams duking it out for the right to be in the final game of the season. Butler rises to the challenge, and took care of VCU to finish up what they couldn't do last year.
But things didn't work out with the right script for Butler, and they couldn't make any shots. They could only muster 18.8% shooting. That's not even going to win you a pick up game, let alone against a team like UCONN. UCONN had come in on a roll as well after racking up their own league tourney championship, and just turning it on at the right time. Even with this game, Butler was down 3 points at halftime, and probably could have been more. But the Bulldogs just struggled all night with their shots, and had to walk away as runner up for the second time.
With all of this though, what a run for Butler. People really started believing this team could do something special, and it's too bad they couldn't have pulled off that magic in the championship. Who knows when an opportunity will come again? But those guys will know what that feeling is, and that will say something about them.
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