Butler 69, Xavier 68

And you thought March was mad.

It might have been the middle of December, but the Butler Bulldogs and Xavier Musketeers staged a raucous, revolting and ridiculously spirited slugfest on Saturday afternoon at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The basketball was bold, the effort outstanding, but the only thing people will remember after Butler’s lucky one-point victory is the fact that the officiating crew made three substantial mistakes in the final 75 seconds of regulation.

Make that 78 seconds… or no, wait: make that 76.8 seconds.

Confused? We’ll explain.

Whether you watched this game on television or not, the final sequences of a passionate pulse-pounder were defined by miscues on the part of the zebras, not the participating players. The result of these galling gaffes was madness, all right… just not the kind of madness that leaves smiles on the faces of fans or coaches.

The first mistake that left people puzzled was a traveling call on Butler’s star forward Matt Howard with 1:15 left and Butler trailing by a 66-65 count. Howard made a perfectly legal series of pivot moves and displayed very sound footwork, yet got whistled for steps when he performed a jab step to his left within five feet of the goal. When Xavier’s Jordan Crawford made a tough 16-foot turnaround jumper to give the visitors a 68-65 edge with 48 seconds left, it appeared that that traveling call would carry more than a little influence on the final outcome.

Improbably yet undeniably, it would barely register in light of the events that followed.

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After Butler scored to pull within a point at 68-67, the Bulldogs employed full-court pressure. BU star Gordon Hayward briefly got one hand on the ball as Xavier guard Mark Lyons tried to work his way up the court, but the near-side official – possibly aware on a subconscious level that the traveling call against Howard was sketchy – handed Butler a gift by ruling a held ball. The possession arrow favored BU, and the Bulldogs were granted a reprieve.

But if THAT call was controversial (and it was), it still couldn’t hold a candle to what happened in the final 15 seconds… or was it 19? Or maybe 17.8?

When Xavier deflected a pass into the backcourt with 14.7 seconds remaining, it seemed that Butler – having to retrieve the loose ball 70 feet from the basket – was going to have a tough time piecing together its final offensive possession. However, the clock froze at Hinkle Fieldhouse for three or four seconds. This fact went unnoticed in real time, but when Hayward – after crashing the offensive glass – scored a layup with 1.2 seconds left at the end of a crazy loose-ball scramble, the officials went to the scorer’s table to look at a TV monitor. They ultimately ruled that Hayward’s basket would have beaten the buzzer even if the clock hadn’t stopped. Flowing from that decision, the arbiters also ruled that the remaining 1.2 seconds should be removed from the clock, with Butler being declared the winner.

Xavier’s team and coach Chris Mack were predictably outraged, and one Musketeer charged the scorer’s table in frustration. Madness hit the Horizon League’s most famous gymnasium, but not in a way anyone ever could have expected.

And to think: It’s only mid-December.

Buckle up for a long and wild ride with the Butler Bulldogs… with or without clock malfunctions. Thanks to Gordon Hayward’s untiring effort in the final minute of regulation, Coach Brad Stevens’ students passed their latest test.

It doesn’t matter that they passed that test on a curved grading scale instituted by a bunch of mistake-prone referees.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer