Running 2010 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament thread

Two notes about Butler:

(1) I hereby make my street cred claim to cheer for Butler all the way to the end. I went to a Butler-Bowling Green NIT game a few years ago. In 2002 or 2003, I'm guessing. You can look it up (that the game was played there, not that I attended).

(2) I always thought that with Butler the "Hoosiers" connection wasn't that they were white guys who "play the right way." Hell, Archey and Hainje and a lot of those late '90s-early '00s guys were black. But instead the reason is because their fieldhouse is the prototype arena from that era - in fact, Conseco Fieldhouse was basically modeled on it. Hell, the climactic scenes of the movie were filmed there. To my knowledge, the rims are still 10 feet from the floor in Hinkle and the free throw line is 15 feet.

 

Fuckabuncha Butler. That is all.

 

Technically, Hinkle is a much-larger knockoff of the Martinsville, Ind., gym where John Wooden played high school ball. The frame is the the same, but inside it's a modern-looking facility that serves as a junior high and community gym and health club.

Actually, the issue of Butler attendance brings up an interesting point about how Cinderellas translate into ratings. Allegedly, "everybody" loves that story, but I'm not sure they care to watch it. Actually, I wonder if the large fan bases of the name teams eliminated have checked out, as have people whose brackets with those name teams blew up. If there was a Final Four of Northern Iowa-Butler and Kentucky-Duke, I bet the latter game would have significantly higher ratings.

 

Also ... while I'm on it, Butler is a small school from Indiana still alive in the NCAA Tournament that, again, plays in the same arena where the damned movie was filmed. What comparisons have to do with race, even as a subtext, or state or origin is curious to me. Valparaiso had the "Hoosiers" comparisons heaped upon it when it made a run, and 90 percent of that team was from behind the old Iron Curtain.

And I don't begrudge anybody from Indiana in particular from being on the bandwagon. Ninety-nine percent of the state are either Indiana or Purdue fans, and Notre Dame football fans, even the people who go to Butler, Ball State, Valparaiso, Indiana State or Wabash and DePauw, for that matter. But a little civic pride never hurt anybody.

 

It would be interesting to see what would happen to Butler's attendance if they were in a better conference than the Horizon League.

Butler is oft-mentioned as a Missouri Valley Conference expansion candidate, but the MVC is just as off-the-map to casual Indy fans as the Horizon is, so I don't know if it would matter.

 

Ninety-nine percent is way high, but I get your point.

I can't speak for fans of all of the Indiana mid-majors, but the cute factor that Butler has nationally does not translate in-state to a segment of fans.

Throughout the Division I era, Butler was part of the state's mid-major strata with Ball State, Evansville, Indiana State, Valparaiso, and more recently, IUPUI. All of the school's played each other, for the most part, and good rivalries were alive amongst the fan bases, even if they were spread out over several different conferences.

Now that Butler has had a taste of success, its decided it's too good for its peers, often demanding scheduling concessions a la a major conference school. It didn't begin to do this until Stevens became coach. I don't know what the status of the Ball State and Evansville series are, but Butler does not play Indiana State anymore, nor IUPUI.

I admire their strike-while-the-iron-is-hot ethos, but fans of the other mid-major schools know this balloon usually comes back to earth because all of them have had similar shots in the spotlight too. Ball State in the early 90s and early 00s, Valpo in the late 90s, Evansville in the late 80s, Indiana State in the late 70s. Butler's arrogance might pay off, but we'll see.

 

I just can't imagine a fan from anywhere else in America other than Indiana knowing or caring or letting it in any way affect their romanticizing of the story that Butler won't play IPFW in a home-and-home, nor should they, quite honestly.

 

That's why I said it doesn't translate in-state. Of course no one cares nationally.

 

I get what you're saying. Being from in-state, I don't think of Butler as a "cute" little school. That's reserved for Hanover and Franklin and Taylor and Manchester, etc. People in South Carolina probably don't think that way about Winthrop. People in Ohio don't think that way about Toledo. And so on and so forth.

But I still think people, regardless, understand that it's a pretty big deal when Butler knocks off a No. 1 see. I mean, it's still a mid-major, even if you don't think about it quite that way.

It's funny. Last night I was just saying to my wife how much perspective and context matters. When Butler comes to Valparaiso, it's like the Rolling Stones are coming to the ARC. Yet when Butler plays Syracuse, it feels like Hickory High School taking the floor against South Bend Central.

 

Eh, I can't agree with this.

How many would have been recruited by Syracuse? Not sure if Syracuse would have offered Heyward or Mack or Howard if they lived within a couple hours of the Carrier Dome instead of Hinkle. But I can say that Heyward and Howard could have chosen Indiana or Purdue, so it wasn't like they were overlooked diamond-in-the-rough walk-ons.

Sure, Syracuse should have won the game. They choked on applesauce in the last three minutes.

But I still think the "David vs. Goliath" aspect that some, not all, have portrayed is way, way, way off the mark. That's all I'm ranting about.

Butler has been a consistent tournament team for the past 10 years. I remember them boat racing Wake Forest back in 2001. They led Florida with less than four minutes to go in the Sweet 16 in 2007 as the Gators were on their way to title number two. Butler's OOC this year was Minnesota, UAB, UCLA, Xavier, Ohio State, Clemson and Georgetown. They played multiple games on ESPN, including one in Madison Square Garden.

Can the Hoosiers subplot. That's all I ask. This team isn't a bunch of white shooters. It's a tough-minded defensive team that protects the basketball.

I, too, remember the Valpo storyline complete with pictures of cornfields back when they went to the Sweet 16. I hate that shit. Valpo was a coach's kid, a tough point guard, a couple Euros and the Jenkins twins. I'm pretty sure none of them had ever pushed a plow.

I guess, as a native Hoosier son, that I'm just begging, pleading, screaming for all genres of media to stop pulling out the Hickory High comparisons when Butler beats somebody in the tournament.

And again, I have nothing against Butler University or its basketball team...just the legions of bandwagon jumpers (and I know they exist everywhere at these points in tournaments and playoffs) who love watching basketball played the "right way".

Oh, but....fuck Barry Collier and his insistence that less and less high school hoop be played at Hinkle. Let's not forget barry, that venerable old barn was built for the IHSAA State Finals. So, have some respect for history and stop jacking up prices (I think it's close to $25 per ticket now) to watch Horizon League basketball.

 

Depends what his goal is. Maybe he's always wantd to work for a big school. Or maybe he wants to be loaded so he set his family up for life. Who knows

 

Teams aren't supposed to win because they're a better seed. The people who set the lines in Vegas know 1000 percent more than the Selection Committee that hands out those designations.