Butler beats Kansas State, is going to the Final Four

If you read anything about the Final Four in the coming week, I will guarantee that you will see at least a couple few dozen couple hundred references to the movie 'Hoosiers'.

And why not?

The similarities are striking. The movie 'Hoosiers' (which you have all seen and don't need me to recap, but I'm going to do it anyway) is about tiny Hickory High, a small high school in Indiana that makes a run through the state tournament and to the 1952 title. Butler is a mid-major university in the state Indiana that has made a run through the NCAA tournament and is two games away from winning a national title in the same city Hickory won their's. Butler's home gym -- Hinkle Fieldhouse -- was where the title game was shot in the movie.

While that is all well and good, the Butler story is much more similar to that of Milan High, the school that 'Hoosiers' was based on. Milan, who had all of 73 enrolled students, won the 1954 Indiana state title.

In the movie, Hickory High was portrayed as a tiny school with passion for hoops but not a lot of hopes for their team. While Milan High was, in fact, a tiny school, their title run didn't exactly come out of no where. Milan had made the state semifinals the year before and returned four of their starters. Milan had expectations coming into the season. People thought they were going to be good.

Like Butler.

Butler may be a mid-major using the dictionary definition, but Butler isn't a mid-major the way George Mason was in 2006 or Gonzaga was in 1999. This wasn't a fluke. Butler didn't get past UTEP and Murray State by accident. They didn't beat Syracuse and Kansas State because they were lucky.

Butler is a very good basketball team, and they proved quite a few people wrong with their incredible run.

Including myself.

You see, I bought into the fact that the Bulldogs are small along their front line, that they aren't a terribly deep team, and that their players don't have the physical gifts that a team like Syracuse or Kansas State does. I believed the talk that a team that is smaller and less athletic cannot win without hitting threes -- something Butler hasn't been terribly good at this year. I paid attention to Matt Howard's issue with fouls, and how the guys playing behind him don't have nearly the reputation he does.

I focused on the negatives associated with this team.

And in doing so, I completely ignored everything they do well.

Shelvin Mack and Gordon Hayward are as good as just about any point guard-wing duo in the country. Mack, who finished with 16 points and 7 boards against K-State, is a tough, strong, and underrated point guard that loves taking the big shot. He had three huge buckets in the second half that played a large role in Butler's ability to hold off Kansas State's run for so long. Hayward, 22 and 9, is long, athletic, and versatile, and was the spark that ignited Butler's run after K-State too their first lead at 52-51 with 4:51 left on the clock.

But you know about those two. Everyone knows about those two. And Butler is so much more than just those two.

They are Ronald Nored. Nored, who finished with his usual floor-game-special stat line, finishing with 4 points, 5 boards, 5 assists, and 4 steals, is the overlooked member of Butler's starting back court.

Why?

Because so much of what Nored provides doesn't show up in the box score. Well, actually its just shows up in the opposite side of the box score. You see, Nored heads up what has become a phenomenal defensive back court. Joined by Mack and Sean Vanzant, Butler held Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente to just 32 points on 11-30 shooting two nights after forcing Scoop Jardine, Andy Rautins, and Brandon Triche into an off-night.

The Bulldogs are Andrew Smith. Smith is a 6'11" freshman center that came in and played 12 excellent minutes, scoring three points and grabbing two offensive rebounds, when Matt Howard was forced to the bench with foul trouble. It was Smith's first minutes since March 9th, and his first game playing double figure minutes since Dec. 31.

Butler is the team that doesn't fold after it gives up a 13-2 run in the span of 3:02, allowing the Wildcats to take their first lead of the game at 52-51 with 4:51 left. Instead, Butler showed the poise to answer with a counter punch of their own, going on a 9-2 run to take a 60-54 lead and seal the game. It was the same run that they put on Syracuse in the second half -- twice -- when the Orange looked like they were getting ready to take the game over. It was the same counter they had ready when Murray State took a 50-47 lead with two minutes left in the second round.

Good basketball teams show poise, maturity, and the ability to execute in the clutch. Butler does.

Butler is the team that, despite being drastically smaller and less athletic, outrebounded Kansas State 41-29. They are the team that grabbed nearly three-quarters of the available defensive rebounds, limiting Kansas State, who is one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country, to just 11 offensive boards in 40 tries.

As the Bulldogs were putting the finishing touches on Kansas State, cementing a trip to their home city of Indianapolis for the Final Four, I got this text from a friend who does radio up in Delaware (our emphasis added):

I usually don't pull for the midmajors, but Butler make me a believer today. That was basketball.

He is right. That was basketball, and that was a great performance to watch.

Tonight, Butler was just simply the better basketball team.

Maybe they were all along too.