NCAA Championship Game

[moytoy12]

Boy, Butler picked the wrong time to string together 2 SLU-like scoring droughts.

[AlumniFan]

My thoughts exactly.

[Bobby Metzinger]

Boy, Butler picked the wrong time to string together 2 SLU-like scoring droughts.

Stevens should have left to coach Mizzou after beating VCU and let his assistants coach. Jim Nantz hasn't struggled this much to explain why shots aren't falling since Tiger Woods returned to Augusta National last year.

[jbizzle09]

I was just thinking that. For a minute there, the Bulldog logo looked like a Billiken.

[AlumniFan]

18.8% from the floor. 57.1% from the line. That is worse than Billiken ugly.

[Bobby Metzinger]

Ok sports fans, a question:

Would you rather see SLU

A. Get to the National Championship game and get absolutely embarrassed

or

B. Never make the tournament in your lifetime

[billikenfan05]

Ok sports fans, a question:

Would you rather see SLU

A. Get to the National Championship game and get absolutely embarrassed

or

B. Never make the tournament in your lifetime

Is that a real question?

[AlumniFan]

A

[waldo027]

Is that a real question?

lol, seriously.

I'd rather make it to the Dance and get embarrassed in the first round then never, ever make it.

[jbizzle09]

Ok sports fans, a question:

Would you rather see SLU

A. Get to the National Championship game and get absolutely embarrassed

or

B. Never make the tournament in your lifetime

Seriously? If SLU got to back-to-back championship games, came within a last second shot of winning one game, and were able to stay in the other game despite shooting 19%, I would be f'n ecstatic.

Butler's shooting was embarassing. However, they were able to make UConn shoot terribly as well and held them to 53 points. They were never truly out of the game until the last full minute. While it was the ugliest championship game I've ever seen, I don't think anyone can feel like they didn't deserve to be there.

Metz, if you would rather SLU never make the tournament as opposed to getting embarassed in the championship game, then you are a gotdamn idiot!

[kshoe]

Matt dickey in one shining moment.

Let's all hope next year a real billiken (or pelican) makes it...

[Box and Won]

Matt dickey in one shining moment.

Let's all hope next year a real billiken (or pelican) makes it...

One shining Dickey.

[Taj79]

Watched the first half. As Tony Kornheiser said yesterday on PTI when discussing this game, the game had the "ridiculous starting tip of "nine-twenty-three eastern thereby guaranteeing the loss of the majority of the east coast audience by halftime." Watching this game or sleep? I went to bed.

Nice, idiotic question Metz ...... I just think of how our athletic department would BOTCH the sales of Billiken merchandise despite being in two straight championship games, no matter the outcome.

I have to tip my hat to the Butler group. In hindsight, I just don't see how that team (and that team plus Gordon Hayward) makes not one but two Final Fours/Final Twos. The talent level was weak -- but it worked so who can knock them. They played tough defense and really made playing ugly work. There isn't a guy on that team I'd say was a "must have." But the sum was a total of its parts. Stevens will never be hotter --- if he wants to go, now is the only time he will have IMO.

On the flip side, Uconn wasn't really much better and a tip of the hat to them and Kemba Walker for carrying them. I've got to learn that you have to pick the Big East tournament winner to make a nice run in my brackets from here on out. Anyone on that roster a "must have?" Yes -- definitley Lamb and Oriaki and even Walker. The rest? Not so much.

What is really amazing to me and should be also for the rest of the old-timers on here ---- Butler was Fordham when we were in the Midwest Cities Conference together. We were duking it out with Xavier and Loyola of Chicago and even Oral Roberts way back when but Butler was the literal dog of that conference. They were what Tulane was in the Metro. What DePaul currently is in the Big East. And here they are today. Hats off.

Now, having said that, will it continue? Doubt it. Yeah -- they'll likely remain relevant in the Horizon, alhtough I think Porter can rise real fast in there with Loyola. And they might continue to dominate there ala Gonzaga in the WCC (or whatever league they're in). But this is the highwater mark for Butler. Nice mark, again.

[SpencerFilibuster]

I have to tip my hat to the Butler group. In hindsight, I just don't see how that team (and that team plus Gordon Hayward) makes not one but two Final Fours/Final Twos. The talent level was weak -- but it worked so who can knock them. They played tough defense and really made playing ugly work. There isn't a guy on that team I'd say was a "must have." But the sum was a total of its parts. Stevens will never be hotter --- if he wants to go, now is the only time he will have IMO.

I think Stevens has no reason to leave right now, unless it is an elite program. Since there aren't any perfect jobs out there right now, why go anywhere? I think he's secured himself as a 'must-have' coach for at least a number of years, regardless of Butler's outcome the next few. Sure, they probably won't achieve this kind of success again, but not many do, and Stevens will always have that on his resume.

[Bobby Metzinger]

Nice, idiotic question Metz ......

Taj, it's a valid question. That was like watching a JV team out there. UConn's defense didn't limit Butler to 18% from the field. Butler's offensive ineptitude was the reason for them losing. That Andrew Smith kid was like watching Husak out there. Awful fouls 94 feet from the basket, missed layups, etc. Watching that game last night reminded me why you have to recruit kids like Charles Okwandu and Alex Oriakhi. Both tower over 6'9 and weigh over 245 lbs. Huge athletic kids. They made life a living hell for my boy Matt Howard. Brad Stevens needed to take a coaching vacancy at halftime of that game.

You're also right, SLU's alleged "marketing team" would botch the ###### out of any merchandising efforts or anything associated with us making a Final Four. I've seen lemonade stands with better marketing than the crack squad of marketers SLU has.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Watched the first half. As Tony Kornheiser said yesterday on PTI when discussing this game, the game had the "ridiculous starting tip of "nine-twenty-three eastern thereby guaranteeing the loss of the majority of the east coast audience by halftime." Watching this game or sleep? I went to bed.

Nice, idiotic question Metz ...... I just think of how our athletic department would BOTCH the sales of Billiken merchandise despite being in two straight championship games, no matter the outcome.

I have to tip my hat to the Butler group. In hindsight, I just don't see how that team (and that team plus Gordon Hayward) makes not one but two Final Fours/Final Twos. The talent level was weak -- but it worked so who can knock them. They played tough defense and really made playing ugly work. There isn't a guy on that team I'd say was a "must have." But the sum was a total of its parts. Stevens will never be hotter --- if he wants to go, now is the only time he will have IMO.

On the flip side, Uconn wasn't really much better and a tip of the hat to them and Kemba Walker for carrying them. I've got to learn that you have to pick the Big East tournament winner to make a nice run in my brackets from here on out. Anyone on that roster a "must have?" Yes -- definitley Lamb and Oriaki and even Walker. The rest? Not so much.

What is really amazing to me and should be also for the rest of the old-timers on here ---- Butler was Fordham when we were in the Midwest Cities Conference together. We were duking it out with Xavier and Loyola of Chicago and even Oral Roberts way back when but Butler was the literal dog of that conference. They were what Tulane was in the Metro. What DePaul currently is in the Big East. And here they are today. Hats off.

Now, having said that, will it continue? Doubt it. Yeah -- they'll likely remain relevant in the Horizon, alhtough I think Porter can rise real fast in there with Loyola. And they might continue to dominate there ala Gonzaga in the WCC (or whatever league they're in). But this is the highwater mark for Butler. Nice mark, again.

Re the start time, perhaps a half hour earlier would have been better. Usually it's the Left Coast that is driving home from work when these big games start. It is difficult to reconcile the 3 hour time difference between East Coast and West Coast in a game of this magnitude.

Re Butler, yes Butler was often close to the MCC doormat. But Butler is the one that had patience, when many of its fellow MCC schools left- Marquette, SLU, followed by Dayton to the Great Midwest, then Xavier to the Atlantic 10, Evansville to the MVC. Oral Roberts dropped out of D-1, then reemerged in the lower Mid-Continent (now Summit League). Oklahoma City, which was the MCC doormat, dropped down to NAIA. So the only schools that remained with Butler in the MCC were Loyola and Detroit. Butler was able to build its program, able to defeat the successor teams in the Horizon, and to stay ahead of Loyola and Detroit. The result has been multiple NCAA appearances. Then Butler was able to recruit some players. My understanding is that Haywood and Howard were fairly high recruits. Next came 2 consecutive NCAA Championship Game appearances.

Maybe the moral re Butler is that patience is indeed a virtue, that and get the gettings while the gettings are good (and everyone else has abandoned the ship).

[slu72]

Maybe the moral re Butler is that patience is indeed a virtue, that and get the gettings while the gettings are good (and everyone else has abandoned the ship).

You can't blame SLU for trying to stay close to the biggies in the conferences we joined. Then again, it's been a very tough and demeaning road with only 4 NCAA's in almost 20 years. There is something to be said for being a big fish in a little pond vs the other way around. It's sure worked for Zaga and Butler. And maybe X as well, if they jumped to the Beast they'd struggle for their annual invite to the dance. As for the game, it amazed me how CT just seemed to shrink the court last night. Long arms everywhere interrupting shots, passing lanes, and dribble penetration. They got some wide spanned bigs for sure. Yeah, Butler was cold, but most of that was probably due to CT preventing them from getting into any kind of offensive flow or rythm.

[Bay Area Billiken]

You can't blame SLU for trying to stay close to the biggies in the conferences we joined. Then again, it's been a very tough and demeaning road with only 4 NCAA's in almost 20 years. There is something to be said for being a big fish in a little pond vs the other way around. It's sure worked for Zaga and Butler. And maybe X as well, if they jumped to the Beast they'd struggle for their annual invite to the dance. As for the game, it amazed me how CT just seemed to shrink the court last night. Long arms everywhere interrupting shots, passing lanes, and dribble penetration. They got some wide spanned bigs for sure. Yeah, Butler was cold, but most of that was probably due to CT preventing them from getting into any kind of offensive flow or rythm.

I don't blame SLU. The Great Midwest had the potential to be a great league, if it could have stayed together and gotten Louisville, which stayed in the Metro, instead of later merging with the Metro to form C-USA.

I questioned the formation of C-USA at the time, having been at SLU during SLU's less than stellar Metro days, but SLU was basically along for the ride in that merger.

Butler was a little fish in a little pond in the old MCC. Then the rest of the fish jumped out of the pond, and Butler became a bigger fish in an even smaller pond.

[Taj79]

Metz ... it is an idiotic question .... if one Billiken boarder chooses "B" they are out of their minds. There is no choice in this question therefore its idiotic in my book.

Butler frankly looked like us at times in that game last night. Norad can't shoot and was playing the role of Dwayne Polk. Zach Hahn was/is the Butler version of Paul Eckerle. Smith as Husak? Enuff said. Howard was just a three-inch taller version of Luke Meyer -- a battler dramatically overmatched. Mack could have played the role of any number of past Bills last night ---- Cory Frazier, John Redden, Virgil Cobbin all come to mind. Stigall hit two threes in the first and then one more in the second ..... I dunno, maybe Kyle Cassity, Christian Salescich or Drew Deiner all come to mind. Not bad, but certainly not good nor the best. Watching Butler was like watching the real life version of "Hoosiers" only they all weren't from small-town Indiana and they didn't pull out the Hollywood ending. There was no Jimmy Chitwood.

As I said coming back from the Cleveland pod, we do not get these kinds of athletes. Instead of Okiakhi or CJ Fair or Dallas Lauderdale or Rick Jackson or Jae Crawford, we get guys like Justin Johnson, Barry Eberhardt, Va'shune Newborne, Horace Dixon and Cory Remekun. Just saying. Okwandu looked like some alien freak out there -- but his talent didn't match up with his size --- yet. But he's a senior and out of Uconn forever. Of course, you can't teach size so he'll likely land a paying gig somewhere.

I liked SLU's movement from the MCC outward, but wish the old Great Midwest had stayed together. If Grawer hadn't burned out (or was given the necessary resources back then) we might have been able to parlay the MCC success into something greater, as Xavier eventually did. But its all still a crapshoot and one never knows for sure. Loyola of Chicago waslarge for a while in those old MCC days. And who did they just hire? Butler has somehow hit that lucky meteor ride ala Gonzaga and Xavier. I would not say any of those three are at the same plateau as Geoergetown and Villanova because of national titles won and their stars can fade if they don't start making more national noise soon. VCU? Shaka was indeed smart to re-up with them for the number he did. I don't know that they'll be back but they should be. Them, Mason and Old Dominion have been playing some nice ball in the Colonial for some time now. Thjey'll stay relevant for anothetr two years based on this -- longer if they continue to win and show up in the dance annually.

Hope will always spring eternal for us but its indeed tough being a Billiken fan. Much like St. Joe's, our "hawk" will never die either.

[Bay Area Billiken]

Metz ... it is an idiotic question .... if one Billiken boarder chooses "B" they are out of their minds. There is no choice in this question therefore its idiotic in my book.

Butler frankly looked like us at times in that game last night. Norad can't shoot and was playing the role of Dwayne Polk. Zach Hahn was/is the Butler version of Paul Eckerle. Smith as Husak? Enuff said. Howard was just a three-inch taller version of Luke Meyer -- a battler dramatically overmatched. Mack could have played the role of any number of past Bills last night ---- Cory Frazier, John Redden, Virgil Cobbin all come to mind. Stigall hit two threes in the first and then one more in the second ..... I dunno, maybe Kyle Cassity, Christian Salescich or Drew Deiner all come to mind. Not bad, but certainly not good nor the best. Watching Butler was like watching the real life version of "Hoosiers" only they all weren't from small-town Indiana and they didn't pull out the Hollywood ending. There was no Jimmy Chitwood.

As I said coming back from the Cleveland pod, we do not get these kinds of athletes. Instead of Okiakhi or CJ Fair or Dallas Lauderdale or Rick Jackson or Jae Crawford, we get guys like Justin Johnson, Barry Eberhardt, Va'shune Newborne, Horace Dixon and Cory Remekun. Just saying. Okwandu looked like some alien freak out there -- but his talent didn't match up with his size --- yet. But he's a senior and out of Uconn forever. Of course, you can't teach size so he'll likely land a paying gig somewhere.

I liked SLU's movement from the MCC outward, but wish the old Great Midwest had stayed together. If Grawer hadn't burned out (or was given the necessary resources back then) we might have been able to parlay the MCC success into something greater, as Xavier eventually did. But its all still a crapshoot and one never knows for sure. Loyola of Chicago waslarge for a while in those old MCC days. And who did they just hire? Butler has somehow hit that lucky meteor ride ala Gonzaga and Xavier. I would not say any of those three are at the same plateau as Geoergetown and Villanova because of national titles won and their stars can fade if they don't start making more national noise soon. VCU? Shaka was indeed smart to re-up with them for the number he did. I don't know that they'll be back but they should be. Them, Mason and Old Dominion have been playing some nice ball in the Colonial for some time now. Thjey'll stay relevant for anothetr two years based on this -- longer if they continue to win and show up in the dance annually.

Hope will always spring eternal for us but its indeed tough being a Billiken fan. Much like St. Joe's, our "hawk" will never die either.

Excellent post IMO, Taj.

Like others, during last night's game, I had the thought that I was watching our Billikens during one of their dreaded lulls when they just can't score, can't buy a basket.

And I thought that the playing field in NCAA Basketball is not level, with real college students on a mid-major playing against one and dones on a BCS team, who aren't really playing college basketball, who really aren't college students, but who are playing in a de facto NBA minor league or developmental league. I'm not even saying that's UConn, although UConn was playing a number of freshmen; it could be any number of schools, Kentucky in particular comes to mind.

[courtside]

Excellent post IMO, Taj.

Like others, during last night's game, I had the thought that I was watching our Billikens during one of their dreaded lulls when they just can't score, can't buy a basket.

And I thought that the playing field in NCAA Basketball is not level, with real college students on a mid-major playing against one and dones on a BCS team, who aren't really playing college basketball, who really aren't college students, but who are playing in a de facto NBA minor league or developmental league. I'm not even saying that's UConn, although UConn was playing a number of freshmen; it could be any number of schools, Kentucky in particular comes to mind.

There is a much bigger range from mid-major college students to one and one's. And, not all mid-major or low major players are real college students. Variety is much more than that of types of BCS and non-BCS programs.

Kentucky gets their players from William Wesley. And, as is often the case, several posters in this thread makoing sweeping judgements from one game. UConn won the NCAA Tourney. They still finished 9th in the Big East this year.

[dlarry]

Bernie talking about the game today said it was worse than watching a SLU vs. St. Joe game.

Then said it made a bad A-10 game look exciting.

I can't really argue with him but I was suprised to hear him take the unnecessary shots at the local team and a good basketball conference.

[moytoy12]

Bernie talking about the game today said it was worse than watching a SLU vs. St. Joe game.

Then said it made a bad A-10 game look exciting.

I can't really argue with him but I was suprised to hear him take the unnecessary shots at the local team and a good basketball conference.

It still didn't make an SIU-c wrestling...er...basketball game look exciting.

[dlarry]

It still didn't make an SIU-c wrestling...er...basketball game look exciting.

A Jacksonville St. Vs. SIU-C game would make last nights game look like the Showtime Lakers Vs. the MJ Bulls.

[Bay Area Billiken]

There is a much bigger range from mid-major college students to one and one's. And, not all mid-major or low major players are real college students. Variety is much more than that of types of BCS and non-BCS programs.

Kentucky gets their players from William Wesley. And, as is often the case, several posters in this thread makoing sweeping judgements from one game. UConn won the NCAA Tourney. They still finished 9th in the Big East this year.

Obviously, these are generalizations. But it is also pretty clear what is happening at certain BCS schools, which have become homes of the ones and dones. It is a disturbing trend IMO and in the opinions of my fellow college hoops followers out here. In essence, it turns what is supposed to be college basketball, as in basketball played by college students, into something else. This was a topic of discussion last night as we watched that bad game unfolding. We were discussing the reason for the ones and dones. Is it an NBA rule to no longer draft freshmen out of high school? If so, who agreed to that on behalf of the players? I don't follow the NBA closely.