The Second Annual Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic Basketball Tournament has a lineup card that will be hard to beat.

As announced by ESPN Regional Television Networks early Friday morning, the field consists of the National Championship Runners-Up Butler Bulldogs, Elite Eight participants Baylor Bears, as well as Florida State, Mississippi State, San Diego, Utah, Washington State, and host school Hawaii.

First Round Matchups on ESPNU are as follows:

• Mississippi St. vs. Washington State
• San Diego vs. Baylor
• Utah vs. Butler
• Florida State vs. Hawaii

The tip for First Round games begins on Dec. 22 at 3 pm, and will be televised on ESPNU. The Championship game can be found live on ESPN 2 on Christmas Day at 9:30 pm following the third-place game, which can also be found on ESPN 2.

This tournament is not only a chance for early upsets in the NCAA, but also a time for Butler and Baylor to show the world that they are not a onetime deal. Rather, that they are a force to be reckoned with in the College Basketball World.

The Second Annual Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic, December 22nd-25th only on the ESPN Family of Networks

~James Cook
DFN Sports Staff Writer

Duke 61, Butler 59

In one of the better NCAA championship games in recent memory, a memorable night of basketball lingered in the public consciousness because of all the things that almost happened at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

Every defining sporting event – every competition that leaves an imprint on its audience – possesses a unique power found in a rare convergence of circumstances. Lots of games often involve the same patterns on a larger level, but there’s always a unique alchemy which sets one night apart from another. On this night in the heart of Hoosier country, the Butler Bulldogs weren’t the massive underdog Villanova was against Georgetown in 1985, the last time two private schools contested college basketball’s Division I national title. The fifth seed that fought its way to the Monday night spotlight was, however, playing for all mid-major programs, the Horizon League, and for the endurance of the idea that any team – no matter its resources or its brand name – can win collegiate sports’ most egalitarian and democratic championship, in an event where 65 teams are given the chance to compete for the brass ring.

With the NCAA Tournament very possibly expanding to 96 teams next season – that means the season which will start seven months from now – the chances of an unlikely champion or finalist will decrease due to the added strain involved in a seven-round tournament plus increased travel demands. If the have-nots in college basketball wanted to win a championship, they needed Butler to do so. Moreover, much of the nation – remembering the bad-boy identities of people named Christian Laettner and J.J. Redick – did not want to see the Duke Blue Devils lift a national title trophy for the fourth time in the storied and brilliant career of one Michael Krzyzewski. The buildup to tip-off created a singular mixture of forces which – after 40 minutes – left an unexpected but indelible impression on a national TV audience and a crowd of 70,930 spectators inside the squeaky new dome in Indiana’s capital city.

Simply put, this terrific tussle – which ultimately vaulted Coach K to an even higher place in the college basketball pantheon and propelled Duke to a fourth national championship – will be remembered more for what didn’t happen than anything which actually transpired. This game will be lovingly remembered by Blue Devil backers for the actual course of human events, but most observers will begin the college basketball offseason by talking about the “might-have-beens” that emerged on the special-order hardwood slab the NCAA installed for the 2010 Final Four.

Much of America will wonder what could have occurred on Monday if Butler’s Willie Veasley could have had a relatively normal shooting performance. The dependable defensive stalwart finished the season as a 48 percent field goal shooter and a 35 percent 3-point marksman, but on Monday – as was the case for most of this NCAA Tournament – the senior from Freeport, Ill., couldn’t hit the side of a barn. Veasley continued to get wide-open looks at the goal, but could manage nothing more than a 1 for 9 performance that deprived his team of the scoring punch it so desperately needed on a night when a seven-minute, 49-second field goal drought proved fatal for the Bulldogs.

From Feb. 4 through Feb. 11, Veasley hit over 50 percent of his field goals in a four-game span, but in March Madness, the big V couldn’t retain his shooting touch. Only once – in the West Regional semifinals against Syracuse – did Veasley hit more than three shots from the field (5 of 7). He hit only two attempts in the first round against UTEP, and only three (on 12 looks) in his team’s second-round near-loss against Murray State. Veasley hit only one shot in Butler’s West Regional final victory over Kansas State, and just two shots in Saturday’s national semifinal win over Michigan State. Veasley didn’t have to be spectacular, mind you; a 3 of 9 effort would have been good enough to give coach Brad Stevens an extra lift to that 63-point plateau, the very mark BU reached in its twin takedowns of Syracuse and K-State during a magical run through the Big Dance.

College hoop-heads will also wonder what might have been if the best NBA prospect on the floor – Gordon Hayward – had been able to shoot better than 2 of 11 from the floor. Hayward dominated Michigan State on Saturday in the semis, but on this night, he couldn’t get going, and more specifically, he couldn’t score in the final seconds when Duke clung to a tenuous 60-59 lead. Hayward, with the clock running inside 10 seconds, was funneled away from the rim by Duke’s Kyle Singler – by far the MVP of this game and of the whole Final Four at large. He chose to shoot a 13-foot fadeaway as he drifted out of bounds on the right baseline. The ball actually was straight on, but it hit the left side of the rim and bounced off. Duke’s Brian Zoubek corralled the rebound, and BU’s best chance for victory faded away.

But that didn’t mean BU’s last chance for victory had come and gone. Hayward unexpectedly gained one more chance to rock the college basketball world and create the memory of a lifetime.

This is when an event which almost happened truly colored the collective remembrance of an epic basketball battle between two untiring and unselfish teams.

After Zoubek split a pair of free throws to give Duke a two-point lead – he intentionally missed the second one, given Butler’s lack of timeouts – Hayward furiously dribbled up the right sideline in his backcourt before releasing a heave from the midcourt stripe. Many working journalists on press row felt the shot was going to stay to the right, but the ball seemed to tail back to the left at the very end, putting it near the small white square on the backboard where coaches tell players to kiss angled bank shot attempts. Ultimately, Hayward’s heaven-ward prayer of a propulsion slammed off the window and hit the front of the rim before bouncing out at an angle. If the shot had been located three inches to the left and three inches lower, it would have tickled the twine. Ah, but that’s why a halfcourt shot is what it is: a low-percentage play that has to be perfect. It wasn’t, and while most of the Lucas Oil Stadium crowd – plus Butler fans who watched on a big screen at nearby Hinkle Fieldhouse – assumed the hands-over-heads posture of shock and stunned amazement, the folks in Durham, N.C., rejoiced in the triumph of Duke’s least likely national championship in the Krzyzewski era.

Coach K and Company lurked under the radar for much of the season and were not listed as anyone’s pick to play for the national title, much less win it. Most hoops pundits had Kentucky knocking down Duke in the national semifinals, and if anyone did have the Blue Devils in the final throwdown on Selection Sunday, they almost surely had Kansas or Syracuse defeating the ACC champions for the whole ball of wax.

Kentucky, Kansas and Syracuse, however, failed to uphold their respective No. 1 regional seeds. Duke held up its part of the bargain in a wide-open South Region, and after demolishing West Virginia in the national semifinals, the Blue Devils simply needed to grind out a win against Butler’s fearless defense in order to win title number four for Coach K. Duke – up by five inside the two-minute mark of regulation – did in fact wobble, as Nolan Smith missed an easy layup and Singler – who finished with 19 points in a 40-minute iron-man performance – barely nicked the rim on a wide-open 14-foot jumper. Those misfires gave Butler a chance to win, but only a chance. The brave Bulldogs had not allowed an opponent to score 60 points in the first five games of the 2010 NCAA Tournament. It turns out that Duke’s 61 was just enough to turn back America’s newfound darling, the team that almost won with a shot Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star called “the almost-greatest ending in the history of basketball.”

Make no mistake: It was.

Sadly for Butler, “almost-greatest” doesn’t count.

Hail the Duke Blue Devils and their coach, who joins Adolph Rupp as one of only two men to win four national championships, with John Wooden owning 10. Mike Krzyzewski has taken his place as the second-greatest coach in college basketball history, on a night when his team – for the first time in nine years – became number one at the end of the NCAA Tournament.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Monday, 9:21 p.m. ET, CBS

The Duke Blue Devils are going to be an overwhelming favorite Monday night in Indianapolis when the NCAA Division I men’s basketball championship is contested at Lucas Oil Stadium.

A lot of people, if asked whether the underdog Butler Bulldogs can stay within single digits and keep this title tilt reasonably competitive, would still take Duke. That’s how good the Blue Devils looked Saturday night in their demolition of a very good and accomplished West Virginia club.

If you’ve seen Duke play a good 12-15 times this season – any 12 to 15 games, too – the Devils never were as impressive as they looked in the second national semifinal as nighttime dawned in Hoosier country. Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, and Jon Scheyer absolutely dominated West Virginia’s perimeter defenders, combining to post 63 points on 22-of-45 shooting, 12-of-23 on threes, and 17 assists along with just three turnovers, all in extended minutes. The Blue Devils crashed the offensive glass, with Brian Zoubek leading the charge as they got open look after open look off offensive rebounds. They turned the ball over just five times as a team. That’s virtually flawless stuff from a team that’s undergone its most positive transformation not during the regular season, but in the midst of an increasingly impressive NCAA Tournament run that has Mike Krzyzewski within one win of a national title that would place him – and Duke as a program – on a higher plateau within the world of college basketball.

If you want an idea of how good Duke was last night, think about this. The Blue Devils were the most efficient offensive team in the country this season, and last night was their second best offensive performance of the year. The best? When they scored 114 points against Penn back in December.

Think about that.

Butler is going to have its work cut out. The Bulldogs will be at a tremendous size disadvantage. With Matt Howard on the floor (which isn’t a certainty, as he may have gotten a concussion in Saturday’s semifinal against Michigan State), the BU front line consists of the 6′8″ Howard, 6′3″ Willie Veasley, and the 6′9″ Hayward, who is a natural two guard. Without Howard, Butler basically has to go to a five-guard lineup and sacrifice a lot of length on the court.

Duke, on the other hand, is as big as it has been in a long time. Zoubek, who is finally embracing his 7′0″ frame, and Lance Thomas, a workhorse at 6′8″, start for Coach K, while the 6′10″ Plumlees – Miles and Mason – come in off the bench. Those four go to the glass hard. Butler has been able to handle a couple of very good rebounding teams the last two games – Michigan State and Kansas State – but Duke is bigger than either of those two teams.

The Bulldogs are also going to have to slow down the three-headed monster of Smith, Scheyer and Singler. Again, Butler has the tools and the track record to make you believe that they can slow down talented perimeter players, but the Bulldogs have yet to face a team with three weapons as potent as the ones that comprise Duke’s backcourt.

If Butler is going to win this game, the Bulldogs will do it defensively. Coach Brad Stevens’s studs need to turn this game into the one they played against Michigan State. This final throwdown needs to be a slow-paced (Bull)dogfight. Butler won’t be able to catch Duke if it tries to run with the Devil, but if the Bulldogs can make this an ugly game played in the 50s, they have a shot.

Given all the David and Goliath references that are already flying around – fast and furious – in the hours before tip-off, that “shot” might as well be referred to as a slingshot.

We’ll see if Butler can pull a little Villanova 1985 magic out of its hat. The only thing left to do is release the jump ball and play 40 minutes.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Butler 52, Michigan State 50

Don’t call the Butler Bulldogs a Cinderella. Don’t call them Hoosiers. Don’t call them the new George Mason.

Call them the best defensive team in the country, and call them a participant in the last and most meaningful college basketball game of the season.

Yes, coach Brad Stevens’s team – whose campus is located just six miles from the site of the 2010 Final Four – is one of the most improbable national championship game contestants in recent memory, but after another normal day at the office, it’s hard to deny the way this team goes about its business. Butler defeated Michigan State – and legendary coach Tom Izzo – by doing the things it always does.

Only four men have made more Final Fours than Izzo has at Michigan State. By reaching the last weekend of the college basketball season on six different occasions with Sparty over the past 12 years, Izzo has rocketed to the top echelon of the sport’s bench bosses. Izzo’s ability to coax winning performances out of his teams – even with injuries and struggles and inconsistencies – is proven beyond all doubt and discussion, so when Butler took the court at Lucas Oil Stadium against MSU, there were some lingering questions about the Bulldogs’ ability to persevere for 40 additional minutes.

Those questions were answered with typical Butler boldness.

Forget the fact that Butler shot only 31 percent from the field.

Forget the fact that Butler gave up 21 points in the game’s first 10 minutes and 11 seconds to a hot-shooting Spartan side.

Forget the fact that Butler – tied at halftime – hit only 24 percent of its field goal attempts in the second half.

Forget the fact that the Bulldogs failed to hit a shot for over 10 minutes in that very same second stanza.

Forget the fact that key guard Shelvin Mack – who, with teammate Gordon Hayward, was the only other Bulldog who reliably put the ball in the bucket during the first half – spent most of the second half on the bench with debilitating muscle spasms.

Forget the fact that snake-bitten center Matt Howard once again fell into early foul trouble on cheap nickel-dime calls and then blew a host of layups in late-game sequences when Butler had a chance to put the flustered Spartans away.

Forget the fact that Butler coach Brad Stevens, at age 33, was contesting a national semifinal against Tom Izzo.

Forget the fact that Izzo, the master of the late-game set play in a one-basket-wins-everything situation, had his big chance to steal a victory and advance to Monday night’s final with one last-second score.

The Horizon League champions and owners of a 24-game winning streak dug into their basketball DNA and did what comes so naturally for them: They defended and rebounded to the very end, enough to overcome their profound offensive limitations and live for yet another two days.

Yes, Butler’s combination of defense and rebounding continued to reign supreme in the college basketball realm, even against a Michigan State squad that prides itself on crashing the offensive glass and winning physical battles underneath the basket. Butler doesn’t own a great deal of size, but since the school’s mascot is a bulldog – and a real live one graced the CBS set at Lucas Oil Stadium a few hours before tip-off – it’s hard not to invoke the famous saying, “it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

These Dogs are not artful or accurate shooters, but they fought harder, better and longer than Michigan State did.

After conceding 21 points in the first 10:11 of play, Butler allowed just 22 points to the Spartans in the next 26 minutes and 42 seconds, carving out a 47-43 lead with 3:07 left. The Bulldogs missed a lot of close-in shots as the stretch run arrived, but their hustle and determination were still good enough to carry the day.

With Butler leading 48-46, unheralded reserve guard Shawn Vanzant flew out of nowhere to rebound a missed 3-pointer by Hayward on the right low block. Vanzant, whose momentum was carrying his body out of bounds toward the baseline, spun in mid-air and threw a perfect pass to a cutting Hayward, who approached the rim and kissed the ball off the backboard to give Butler a 50-46 edge with 1:36 remaining in regulation. The basket was Butler’s first since the 12:18 mark of the second half, and it was also the biggest score either team would register in an expectedly close bare-knuckle brawl of a game.

Michigan State was typically undaunted by that score. The Spartans reduced the lead to 50-49 on three free throws, and when Butler’s Ronald Nored saw a driving layup somehow kick out of the basket with 32 seconds left, Michigan State had a chance to win the ballgame in the closing seconds. The Spartans had gotten to the point where they could walk off the court in triumph with one… more… basket. It’s all they ever could have asked for on an evening when they surrendered 20 points off their 16 turnovers, registered zero fast-break points, and went just 10 of 18 at the foul line.

But then, Butler’s defense would stand tall.

Hayward – who is exceptionally long and athletic – used every bit of his 6-foot-9 frame to defend Michigan State’s beefy bodies in the paint throughout the game. Hayward spends much of his time on the perimeter at the offensive end of the floor, but in this contest, he was asked to stand up to the Spartans’ big men six feet from the basket. On the most fateful possession of this pulse-pounder in Indianapolis, Hayward stood his ground one last time. He might have gotten a piece of MSU forward Draymond Green as the Spartan forward elevated for an eight-footer with eight seconds left, but Hayward – who had contained both Green and teammate Raymar Morgan throughout this contest – reaped the benefits of his consistency. A blocked shot fell well short of the rim, with Nored scooping up the loot and nailing two foul shots for a 52-49 lead with six seconds to go. When Butler executed a perfect “late foul” on MSU’s final possession, all that was needed was a rebound of an intentionally missed foul shot with two seconds on the clock. Hayward naturally snapped up the board against a desperate attempt by Spartan guard Durrell Summers, and Butler’s mid-major move to Monday’s national title tilt was complete.

Not many Americans had Butler in their brackets when the NCAA Tournament began. In a larger context, the champion of the lil’ ol’ Horizon League has certainly stunned the nation. Yet, Butler is winning games by merely imposing its defense-first identity on opponents who simply have to convert foul shots and hit a few jumpers whenever they get the chance. Michigan State didn’t do enough of those things, and as a result, Izzo lost his very first NCAA Tournament game decided by five points or fewer, a truly remarkable stat.

What’s also truly remarkable is that the Butler Bulldogs will play for the NCAA Division I national championship of men’s basketball on Monday night.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

They said it could not be done. The Butler Bulldogs have not only made it to the Final Four, but with tonight’s 52-50 win Butler is now 5-0 in the 2010 NCAA Tournament and headed to Monday night’s Championship Game. Now 33-4 on the season, the Bulldogs await tonight’s Duke vs. West Virginia game winner. The “experts” all said Michigan State’s experience under Tom Izzo, with 6 Final Four appearances in 12 years, was going to vault them into the Championship over Butler, but in the end it was the pride of the Horizon League, the Butler Bulldogs. With campus just 6 miles away, a point that the staff of both ESPN and CBS loved to make note of time and time again, marking the second straight year where a local team played in the same state as their campus. Of course it was last season when Michigan State advanced to the NCAA Championship Game in Detroit before losing to North Carolina. For the record, the 2011 NCAA Tournament Final Four will be held in Houston, Texas.

Butler fans can celebrate this season’s success with great prices on Butler NCAA Tournament hats & apparel online through DFN Sports sites.

Game #1: Butler vs. Michigan State

Saturday, 6:07 p.m. ET – CBS

Based strictly on their seedings – that pesky little number always showing up next to the team names – Michigan State and Butler should probably not be playing in the Final Four. How quickly we forget that these two teams were picked by many back in October to be Final Four teams.

Butler struggled early in the season against some of the better teams the Bulldogs faced, and that development led many people to write them off as a team. The hardwood heroes of Hinkle Fieldhouse were too small; they didn’t have the athleticism to match up with power conference teams; and, last but not least, they played in the Horizon league. As much love as one would like to give to a mid-major program, there is a reason the Butlers of the world are mid-major programs. Butler has proven its greatness over an extended period of time, but the Horizon League champions aren’t going to be landing any McDonald’s All-Americans. They aren’t going to be churning out lottery picks. The way Butler is going to win games is by maximizing the talent it ushers into its program.

Quite simply, don’t fool yourself into thinking that Butler doesn’t have talent.

Gordon Hayward is going to play in the NBA one day. A 6-9 two guard with his skill set is going to get a shot somewhere, and he may even sneak into the back end of the first round when he finally decides to go pro. Matt Howard was recruited by a number of Big Ten schools. He didn’t end up at Butler; he chose Butler. Shelvin Mack is a Lexington, Ky., native that drew interest from some high majors and slipped through the cracks. He’s made himself into one of the guys that the big schools whiffed on.

While Butler does have talent, the key to the Bulldogs is that they don’t rely on that talent to win. What Butler does is play arguably the toughest half-court defense in the country, forcing opponents out of their comfort zone and finishing off possessions by clearing the defensive glass. There may not be a better perimeter defender left in the tournament than Ronald Nored. (If you don’t believe that claim, go back and watch the struggles of talents like Randy Culpepper, Andy Rautins, Jacob Pullen, and Denis Clemente when they played Butler.) Then look at a guy like Willie Veasley. At 6-3, he essentially plays the power forward spot for Butler most of the time, but he was the man that drew the assignment of helping Nored slow down Kansas State’s backcourt in the Elite 8. Anyone who saw that game would attest that Veasley did an exemplary job.

Michigan State, for much of the season, was the exact opposite of Butler. While they didn’t exactly have NBA potential littering their roster like Kentucky did, the Spartans showcased more than a couple guys in their lineup that will get a shot at making an NBA roster. During the season, however, these guys just didn’t live up to their potential. The inconsistent play of Durrell Summers, Raymar Morgan, and Kalin Lucas made everyone in the country temper their expectations for Sparty. Yet, that reality made the nation forget just how good the Spartans really could be if they ever put the pieces together. Remember, this is a team that returned a lot of important players from the national runners-up in 2009.

In typical Tom Izzo fashion, then, Michigan State saved its best for the tournament. Summers — the Midwest Region MOP — was outstanding, averaging 20 points per game through the first two weekends of this year’s Big Dance. He was knocking down jumpers, getting to the basket, and turned into the Spartans’ best player in the clutch. Morgan has been playing like the tough, talented combo forward experts always knew he could become. Delvon Roe, balky knee and all, has been active on the offensive glass for MSU. Draymond Green has done everything a glue guy and team leader is expected to do. If you don’t believe that statement, go back and look at who set up both of Michigan State’s game winners in Sparty’s heartstopping last-second triumphs over Maryland (in the second round) and Tennessee (in this past Sunday’s Midwest Regional final).

There are a number of areas that can decide this game on Saturday evening at Lucas Oil Stadium. Michigan State is a very good rebounding team and will have to keep Butler off the offensive glass. The Spartans are going to have to find a way to slow down Shelvin Mack and Gordon Hayward. Matt Howard has been extremely foul prone all season long, and while Andrew Smith performed valiantly last Saturday against K-State, Butler probably doesn’t want to have to rely on the freshman backup center for additional production against the Spartans.

With all that having been said, this game will likely be decided by Michigan State point guard Korie Lucious. As was mentioned earlier, Butler’s backcourt is very, very good defensively. The Bulldog guards can pressure the ball and make it difficult for opposing ballhandlers to be able to do anything on the offensive end. Lucious has not been great in his limited time at the point this year, in place of the felled Kalin Lucas (out for the rest of the tournament with a torn Achilles). He is a bit undersized and is more of a natural scorer than a pure point guard. As coach Tom Izzo has said, Lucious has a little streetball in him. He has shown a tendency to turn the ball over when faced with pressure, and it’s beyond obvious that Butler coach Brad Stevens will have his kids getting all over Lucious at the defensive end.

One thing you can be sure of in this showdown is Tom Izzo’s ability to game-plan and to diagram sets that can be effective. If Lucious is able to perform against that pressure and get the Spartans into these sets, Michigan State is going to be in a very good position. If he can’t, than Michigan State may not break 60 points like each of Butler’s last six opponents.

Butler knows how to grind out low-scoring wins, but then again, that’s exactly what Michigan State has been able to do as well. Expect a hard-fought defensive battle that will enter the final minute of regulation in a dead heat. Butler’s ability to disrupt MSU’s halfcourt offense should tell the tale in a contest that has overtime written all over it.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

(5) Butler 63, (2) Kansas State 56

They did it.

Butler really did it.

As a result, one of the happiest homecomings in the history of Division I college basketball will unfold in a land where hoops is sacred.

The movie Hoosiers was filmed in Hinkle Fieldhouse, the home of the Butler Bulldogs and the site of Milan High School’s legendary upset of powerful Muncie Central in the championship game of the 1954 all-state Indiana High School Basketball Tournament. The movie faithfully retold the tale of how a scrappy bunch of underdogs – with uncommon grit, resilience and teamwork, plus a pinch of timely outside shooting – soared to the top of their sport in a moment that captured the imagination of young boys, ages 1 to 92, throughout the state of Indiana.

Now, the new Hoosiers have etched their names into the historical record book, inspiring a new generation of Indiana youngsters to reach for their dreams. Call it sappy, call it corny, but don’t call it too good to be true: its reality.

The names of Butler’s players – Hayward and Howard, Mack and Nored, Jukes and Smith, Vanzant and Veasley and Hahn – will be remembered in the nooks and crannies of Hinkle Fieldhouse for generations to come. The lil’ ol’ team from the aptly-named Horizon League now stands upon the mountaintop as the newest mid-major to crack the Final Four code.

The Bulldogs – up and down their roster – knew that they’d be flying back to Indianapolis one way or another after Saturday’s West Regional final against the Kansas State Wildcats. The only question was if their flight would be defined by tomb-like silence or unrestrained revelry.

America knows the answer now.

Butler will be headed back to its home city to host the Final Four. If you don’t have a dog in this fight, and you aren’t rooting for West Virginia to bring hope to the rough patches of Appalachia, you might want to see if you have a soul.

Butler jumped out to the early lead in this game against the No. 2 seed from the Big 12 Conference. BU took control because of its defense. Butler was clicking – the Bulldogs weren’t allowing anything easy to come their way against the Wildcats Saturday night, and it started with their pressure on the perimeter. Ronald Nored, Shawn Vanzant, and Shelvin Mack were absolute terrors for KSU guards Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente. Neither were able to get into a rhythm until far too late in the game.

Butler was able to push its lead to double figures by the second half, but K-State had a run left in the tank.

Coach Frank Martin’s club – which surpassed any and all 2010 expectations in its own right – hit three threes as the Wildcats went on a 13-2 run in the span of 3:02 to take a 52-51 lead on Butler just under the five-minute mark of regulation. Butler answered, scoring nine of the next eleven points and sending Kansas State back to the Little Apple… and not Indianapolis. That may be the most impressive part about this Butler team.

Against Murray State, the Bulldogs blew a late six-point lead and found themselves down 50-47 with two minutes left. Syracuse had twice made what seemed to be a knockout blow against Butler in Thursday’s regional semifinals, but Butler erased a deficit and squeezed the Orange out of the tournament in the final moments of that Sweet 16 showdown.

Butler was the better team tonight against KSU, and it showed. The Bulldogs outrebounded KSU, 41-29. They controlled their side of the defensive glass. They gave up nothing easy to the Kansas State bigs after the first half. Mack and Gordon Hayward combined to score 38 points by repeatedly sticking ice-veins jumpers.

The better team won Saturday night. Let the Hoosiers comparisons – and the feel-good movie of the college basketball season – begin in earnest.

What’s Next:

Butler is off to the Final Four in its home city of Indianapolis. The Bulldogs will play the Michigan State-Tennessee winner in next Saturday’s national semifinals.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

(5) Butler vs. (2) Kansas State

So, Thursday night was fun, huh?

Butler advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time in school history by knocking off the region’s No. 1 seed from Syracuse. The Indianapolis-based school moved within a game of playing in the Final Four in its home city.

Kansas State needed not one, but two overtimes to knock off sixth-seeded Xavier in what will no doubt go down as one of the greatest games in tournament history. If Ali Farokhmanesh’s ballsy three-pointer in the second round against Kansas is the most memorable shot of the tournament, Jordan Crawford’s 30-footer for Xavier – which forced the second overtime in Thursday’s heartstopping West Regional semifinal against KSU – is a close second.

Which brings us to Saturday.

The Bulldogs are, once again, going to have their work cut out for them. It’s hard to know how many times it will be said over the next day or two, but the Bulldogs are a small team, much smaller than the Kansas State Wildcats. What they lack in size they make up for in toughness, especially on the defensive end of the floor.

And that’s how they beat Syracuse. Granted, the Orange’s effort had a little something to do with it, but Butler’s performance on the defensive end of the floor can’t be overlooked. The Bulldogs held Syracuse to 59 points. They forced 18 turnovers. When Syracuse needed a basket the most, the Bulldogs got a stop.

But perhaps most importantly, they kept Syracuse off the offensive glass. That will be the key against Kansas State.

The Wildcats are much bigger and much more athletic than Butler. What Kansas State does offensively is to allow Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente free rein to shoot just about whatever they want, sending guys like Curtis Kelly and Jamar Samuels flying at the rim. The result, for K-State, is a fair share of offensive rebounds.

Butler cannot jump with Kansas State. The number five seed is going to need to put a body on the Wildcats. If they can keep K-State off the glass and prevent Pullen and/or Clemente from getting into a rhythm (if both of those guys get it going, it may not matter how well Butler plays), the Bulldogs will be playing in Indianapolis next Saturday. The Bulldogs will watch the team from “the other Manhattan” take the court on national semifinal Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

Thursday 7:07 pm: (5) Butler vs. (1) Syracuse

On paper, this looks like a terrible matchup for the Bulldogs. A lot of people wrote off Butler early in the season after watching them struggle against much of their premiere competition. The knock? The Bulldogs can’t handle the size and athleticism of the best teams in the country.

Butler is probably the smallest team left in the tournament. Gordon Hayward, their three man, is the tallest player that sees minutes. Their center – Matt Howard – is 6′8″, a land warrior, and as foul prone as any player in the country. Their power forward is the same height as the Syracuse backcourt.

As you might imagine, that’s a problem.

Syracuse is big. Even if Arinze Onuaku’s quad isn’t ready to go on Thursday, the Orange are big. Rick Jackson was one of the most underrated players in the Big East this past season. A lefty, Jackson is a good rebounder and a solid post scorer. He blocks his share of shots, and shouldn’t have an issue matching up with Howard. If Onuaku is ready to go, Butler is going to be in some trouble. How are the Bulldogs going to defend and rebound against that much size?

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The paint isn’t the only place Syracuse is big.

Wes Johnson and Kris Joseph are both 6-7 and athletic with long arms. Andy Rautins, Scoop Jardine, and Brandon Triche are all big, physical guards that love to get in the passing lanes on the perimeter. Add in the fact that Butler doesn’t have a lot of great shooter, and you can see how this team might struggle against a zone with that much length that can force turnovers.

Should one even mention that Johnson played his best game of the season on Sunday? He went for 31 points and 14 boards, hit a season high 4 threes, and was as aggressive offensively anyone has seen him over the course of this campaign.

Having said all of that, Butler is a tough team that plays hard, smart basketball. But eventually, athletic talent will outweigh effort.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer

(1) Butler 70, (2) Wright State 45

The Big Picture: No madness occurred in Indianapolis Tuesday night, as Butler (28-4), winners of 20 games in a row – 20 games! – took care of business and took Wright State (20-12) behind the woodshed in a 25-point rout.  To be fair to the Raiders, playing the Horizon League final at atmospheric Hinkle Fieldhouse, Butler’s home court, transformed an already-challenging task into a college hoops version of scaling Mount Everest.  Brad Stevens’s squad can now officially begin thinking about what sort of seed it’s going to get while Wright State has to see whether it’s headed for the NIT or the College Basketball Invitational.

The Good: There was a clinic conducted at Hinkle Fieldhouse on Tuesday, and it came whenever Butler had the rock.  Paced by Shelvin Mack’s 5-of-10 shooting, including 4-of-6 behind the arc, the Bulldogs shot 52 % from the field for the game.  A good rule of thumb is that when a team makes more than half its shots from the field in a championship game, it’s more than likely going to win.  And, ummm, yeah, Butler sure did win tonight.

Beyond the superlative shooting, what makes the Bulldogs such a great team is their balance.  Mack may have led the way in the Horizon League final, but each of Butler’s big six – Matt Howard, Gordon Hayward, Ronald Nored, Willie Veasley, Zach Hahn, and Mack – scored at least 8 points in Wednesday’s triumph. That sort of balance makes for a tough out and is the stuff of a deep March run.

The Bad: Pity poor Wright State.  The deck was stacked against the Raiders from the get-go.  Surprisingly for a team with their experience, they wilted inside Hinkle Fieldhouse.  Brad Brownell’s club typically takes good care of the rock, but the Raiders turned it over 15 teams versus Butler.  That’s just too many times versus an excellent Butler team playing on its home court.

The Ugly: Wowzers, did the Raiders ever pick the wrong time to misfire from the field.  Wright State made 37.4 % of its triples on the season.  Versus Butler tonight, with a trip to the Big Dance on the line, the boys from Dayton, Ohio, were 2-of-20.  The temptation may be to say that Butler’s defense was the reason for Wright State’s struggles behind the arc, but the Raiders were just clanking decent looks all game.

Next: Both Butler and Wright State are playing the waiting game, but for very different reasons.  The Bulldogs can gather around the telly on Sunday and see where they’re seeded in the Big Dance (our guess is a 5-seed) and who their opponent is. The Raiders are going to be hoping the NIT comes calling.  So far, with most regular season champs winning their conference tournaments, there is a decent chance that’s the post-season tournament Wright State will end up playing in.

By: Tim Coyne
DFN Sports Guest Writer