Well there it was, the fitting end to an insanely exciting tournament. Gordon Hayward had missed a fadeaway jumper just seconds earlier. Butler was down two after Hayward grabbed the rebound of a Brian Zoubek purposely a missed free throw with 3.6 seconds left and he dribbled up the court. The whole world could see it coming, the insane half court heave at the buzzer to win the game for the Hoosiers-esque Butler Bulldogs. The hometown Indy crowd would go wild and the entire country (aside from Durham, NC) would rejoice. Hayward let the shot go, and the ball must have been up in the air for years. It came down right against the backboard, hit the side of the rim and away from the cylinder. Game Duke, 61-59.
Lovely scene...
The opening tip was 6'8" Matt Howard vs. 7'1" Brian Zoubek and Howard won it back to his guard. That would be an omen for the rest of the game: even though Duke was bigger, more talented and had the better pedigree, Butler outworked them, outhustled them and had more heart. No, I am not saying that Duke had no heart, far from it. But it is like comparing Pete Rose's heart to Roberto Clemente's, even though they both hustled their brains off, someone has to be the winner. Sorry for the cliche of all cliches, but Butler did not lose this game, Duke won it.
It's got to be the 'stache.
As far as I'm concerned, there was one factor in this game that put Duke ahead of Butler on the scoreboard: they scored more than 60 points. Before this game, Butler had held their last seven opponents under 60 points, and that is directly how they made it into the title game. Butler does not have much scoring talent and they advanced through the bracket by playing outstanding defense and cutting down on turnovers. Howard is a decent inside presence but he can't put the ball in the basket too often, Hayward is a great player but his shots did not fall in this game, and Shelvin Mack is not good enough of a penetrator to free himself for too many outside shots.
Duke played hella good defense a well.
It is not too often that a player can go 2-11 from the floor and still have the best game of any player on the court, but that is what Hayward did last night. He went 8-8 from the foul line (all in the second half), had eight rebounds and just looked so damn smart on the court. Hayward was always where he needed to be and, even though he is not a great defender, bodied up on Zoubek and Kyle Singler from time to time. Ronald Nored may have been the best defender I saw in this tournament. He was tenacious, unflappable and he stuck to his man like ketchup on fries. He didn't let Scheyer or Nolan Smith breathe the entire night and even contributed on offense by handling the ball when Mack looked nervous in the second half.
A team composed of awesome defensive players who can barely score almost won the championship. Quite interesting.
On a game where Smith did not play very well, Singler and Scheyer had no problem picking up the slack. Singler hit big shot after big shot in this game and blanketed Hayward the entire night, including on his potential game-leading shot with five seconds left. Scheyer kept his head together while being hounded, grabbed and bumped by Nored the majority of the game, and actually finished a respectable 5-12 from the field. Zoubek played pretty well, as he has been for the entire tournament, but picked up four fouls in the first nine minutes of the half which forced him to sit out for a few minutes. He finished 3-4 from the field with 8 pts and 10 reb, but did miss a foul shot on purpose (apparently coach's orders) that would have put Duke up three, which almost cost them in the most ultimate way.
He is like legitimately psycho, but it's sick.
Duke's starters played 183 of the possible 200 minutes, with Coach K mostly wanting to stick with his best and most experienced guys in such a multitudious (sp?) game. Meanwhile, with Howard picking up two quick fouls in the first half, Brad Stevens was forced to play his backup center, Avery Jukes, for a good chunk of time. Jukes had scored 11 points in his last 8 games combined and he scored, oh I don't know, 10 POINTS IN THE FIRST HALF! Incredible job by Jukes to keep his team in the game going into halftime. Meanwhile, I hate to be a hater, but Willie Veasley lost the game for Butler. He missed five wide open three pointers and played subpar defense on Singler in this game. If any other player, such as Hayward or Mack, is shooting those threes, I guarantee two go down. Oh well.
He probably knows. Poor kid. Still a solid player, though.
Every analyst was expecting Duke's size to conquer Butler in this game, but it really didn't. Sure, Duke had seven blocks in this game, but it was from Butler's guards going to the basket weakly and at inopportune times. I have never seen such great, strong rebounds from guards as I did in this game. Nored and Mack had some tough boards and Hayward is a very underrated rebounder considering his size. But again, he is such a smart player, he puts himself in the right places to grab boards and goes up strong for them. Sure, Duke went up strong for rebounds, very strong in fact, but at times Butler went up stronger. In the end, Butler could not muster enough points to beat Duke, and Coach K's bunch scored just enough points to pull this one out.
Lance Thomas had like two.
Let me just say that in my entire life, once Pitt has been eliminated from the tournament, I lose interest and barely watch the rest. The only title game I remember watching was Michigan St./Florida back in 2000. Mateen Cleaves for life... Anyways, kudos to the teams in this tournament for keeping it interesting. This has been the most memorable tournament in recent memory (maybe ever) because of the high quality of basketball combined with the upsets and intrigue. Maybe I have grown up and appreciate sports more as a whole, I don't know. Well I did predict the Final Four correctly but I was wishing that Butler could pull it out. Every sport is a game of inches, and last night was the reason for that saying. Incredible.
Why was the damn mascot so involved in the post game ceremonies? Bizarre.
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