Butler Missed Its Lottery Pick

"We knew our team was young so we decided to concentrate on the defensive end, in order to hide our youth."-Jim Calhoun UConn is the national champs and won an ugly national championship game. I've always heard stories about Danny Manning and the Miracles and their run in 1988 and this year watching the Huskies play is probably the closest reincarnation of that year. Walker took a very young team and with Jim Calhoun's guidance won UConn third national championship in thirteen years. What Calhoun did with this team was had his very young squad completely sell-out at the defensive end, while Kemba made his teammates better on the offensive end. Butler coach Brad Stevens said that in the past two years, this UConn team was the best defensive team that Butler had played. Think about that, considering Butler played Duke, Pittsburgh, and Florida just to name a few great teams.

Watching the horrendous shooting performance by the Bulldogs on Monday night, I immediately thought of one thing while they were in their drought. For the first time all season Butler missed their lone lottery pick, Gordon Heyward, who was drafted by the Jazz. When they struggled to score in previous years, Heyward could always bail them out and the majority of the time that could and would jump start their offense. Monday night they were missing that one guy who could create shots not only for himself but for his teammates as well. When UConn needed a bucket they turned to Kemba, a guy who will be playing in the NBA next season (if there is a season). Butler had survived the tournament by ball movement and and each game they had a different guy step up and lead them. The Butler way is described beautifully by Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports.You just feel bad for Butler because that was the worse game I have seen them play in the last three years.