ESPN Men's Basketball

He made a career out of tilting at windmills and slaying dragons, the ultimate underdog in a game in which bigger and stronger is supposed to equate to better.

He was craftier, that’s always been the argument. Pete Carril was able to conjure up an offensive scheme that put his Princeton teams on equal footing with their more talented foes.

Actually, above all else, Carril is practical.

Three, he knows, is worth more than two.

“Sometimes we had centers and forwards smaller than our guards, so who were you going to post up?” Carril said. “So what we had, we had 3-point shooters and we made a lot of 3s. They add up.’’

There is, it turns out, genius in simple math.

The 3-point shot, celebrating its 25th anniversary this season, has revolutionized the game. Post play is no longer as crowded as a New York City subway at rush hour, defenses are stretched across the floor and the little man is more than just a dribbler.

Perhaps less noticeable to the naked eye, the 3 also has given rise to the mid-major. Parity has hit the college game for plenty of reasons -- the one-and-done rule leaves top teams without valuable experience and leadership; television has exposed recruits to more and more teams; name-branding from the NCAA tournament -- but it would be foolish to overlook the impact of the 3.

“It isn’t an equalizer in the game,’’ Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka Smart said. “It is the equalizer.’’

Smart should know. His Rams toed the arc all the way to Houston and the Final Four last season, connecting on 61 of 143 (42.7 percent) of their 3s compared to just 31-of-113 (27.4) by their opponents.

In perhaps their most difficult step, the Elite Eight game against Kansas, VCU knocked down 12-of-25 from long distance to just 2-of-21 for the Jayhawks.

But VCU is hardly the first team to expose its heftier opponents by draining 3s. In some of the most memorable upsets and Cinderella runs in college basketball, there is one common denominator -- 3-point shooting.

• 3-Point Anniversary

  This season marks the 25th anniversary of the 3-point line in college basketball. Once derided, it is now an integral part of the game. 3-point home page »

  • O'Neil: The 3-pointer turns 25 » • O'Neil: The great equalizer » • Brennan: Top 3-point shots » • King: Steve Kerr spans two eras » • Leung: Kevin Foster defends his title »

  1991 Richmond vs. Syracuse: The Spiders knocked down 5-of-17 from the arc to 5-of-21 by the Orange.
• 1996 Princeton vs. UCLA: The Tigers were 8-of-27, the Bruins 5-of-18.
• 1999 Weber State vs. North Carolina: The Wildcats were 14-of-26, the Tar Heels 9-of-21.
• 2005 Bucknell vs. Kansas: The Bison were 8-of-31, the Jayhawks 1-of-11.
• 2010 Northern Iowa vs. Kansas: The Panthers were 9-of-26, the Jayhawks 6-of-23.
• 2010 Butler Final Four run: The Bulldogs sunk 42 3s to 22 by their opponents.
• 2011 Butler Final Four run: The Bulldogs sunk 44 3s to 34 by their opponents.

“When you are truly undersized and undermanned, it changes everything,’’ Butler coach Brad Stevens said. “It doesn’t have to be someone in particular who can shoot it, but you have to some reliability. One of the reasons we went to the national championship game is because Matt Howard hit five 3s his first year and 53 as a senior. We don’t go if we can’t stretch the floor with him.’’

Chris Mack found out just how hard it is to win without a 3-point shooter. A year ago, Brad Redford tore his ACL before the season, sidelining the 42 percent shooter for Xavier. Mack's Musketeers went on to a more than respectable 24-8 record but were bounced short of their fourth consecutive Sweet 16 by Marquette.

The double dip of extra attention paid to Tu Holloway and Xavier’s 2-of-13 shooting from the 3-point line doomed the Musketeers in that game.

“Having Brad back does two things for us,’’ Mack said. “It makes our other players better because the floor is so much more spread out. It makes our penetrators better because they have less help-side [defense] to navigate through, but it almost becomes a 4-on-4 game because you can’t leave him. We’re a much more dangerous team because he’s as automatic as they come.’’

The challenge for mid-majors, or any coach for that matter, is finding guys who can hit a 3. As teams continue to go away from the traditional power forward, relying more and more on guys who are more versatile at the 4 position, recruits who can hit a 3 are at a premium.

Consequently coaches who might be second in line in the pecking order are forced to develop good shooters if they can’t recruit them.

Which begs a chicken-or-egg question: Are great 3-pointer shooters born or can they be created?

The answer is both. Right now Stevens has one of the best 3-point shooters in the game sitting on the bench -- Arkansas transfer Rotnei Clarke. In three years, Clarke has drained 274 3s.

But over the course of time Stevens also has turned guys into 3-point shooters.

Along with Howard, Stevens helped coax Willie Veasley into a 3-point shooter. In his freshman and sophomore seasons, Veasley didn’t even attempt a 3-point shot. By his senior season, he drained 45.

There’s no trick involved, just commitment from a player and dedication from a coach.

“When you see a guy consistently make a shot from 18 feet and you move him back to 20, if he struggles from there people tend to say, ‘Well, that’s not your range,'’’ Carril said. “I never listened to that. There’s not much difference between 18 and 20 feet.’’

No, but there’s a world of difference for a mid-major team that can hit a 3-pointer.

Our friends at The Mag are previewing one high-profile school per day for their Summer Buzz series. For the sake of all that is synergistic, yours truly will be attempting the same, complementing each comprehensive preview with some analytic fun. Today's subject: Butler.

Why do we love college basketball?

It's not just because crazy things can happen in the NCAA tournament. After all, crazy things can happen in every sport, and if the only reason you love college hoops is unpredictability -- if that love has nothing to do with the squeak of a sneaker on a freshly waxed floor or a well-oiled swing pass to a wide-open corner shooter -- then you can just as easily get your jollies from, say, roulette.

But insanity does play its role. As we saw in 2011, the craziness of March Madness -- in which not one, but two good-but-far-from-great mid-major squads somehow found themselves squaring off in the Final Four -- can out-crazy just about anything else in modern sports.

Consider the trajectory of Butler's 2010-11 season: The Bulldogs were essentially left for dead on Feb. 3, when a loss to laughingstock Youngstown State, the team's third in a row, made them 14-9 overall and 6-5 -- 6-5! -- in the Horizon League. Then, naturally, Butler ripped off 15 straight wins, including its first five NCAA tournament games.

For the second straight season -- this time much more miraculously than the first -- Butler got to the national championship game. Then, naturally, the Bulldogs put up one of the worst shooting performances in college hoops history and lost a stinker of a finale to Connecticut (a surprising national champion in its own right). Looking back, nothing about Butler's season, from the early struggles to the late tourney run to the composition of the Final Four -- Virginia Commonwealth! -- to the unfortunate and ugly final performance, was remotely predictable.

In other words, it's difficult to predict where Butler goes from here. Can Brad Stevens build his team's recent postseason shockers into lasting national status? Or is the inequality between schools from mid-major and BCS conferences too much to overcome? Will Butler maintain its excellence despite the loss of its three best players from the past two seasons? Or are the two-time national runners-up consigned to life as a historical footnote?

In the immediate future, it seems the Bulldogs are likely to struggle. But that doesn't mean we should write an ending to Butler's section in the college basketball almanac just yet.

Gordon Hayward, Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard -- the alternating cornerstones behind the past two seasons' March glories -- are gone. We already saw how difficult Butler's life was in the post-Hayward era; without him the Bulldogs lacked a player that could consistently score against more athletic, taller defenders like UConn's.

Things will only get tougher without Howard and Mack. Howard was especially excellent as a senior. He expanded his outside game, cut down on his fouls and posted one of the more efficient seasons of any big man in college hoops. Mack took on the majority of Butler's scoring load, especially on the perimeter, and he was at his best in the most important spots, where lesser players would allow shooting woes or other struggles to consume their appetite for the ball. Howard was consistent and workmanlike; Mack was cold-blooded and brutal. And both were far more important than their numbers reveal.

Howard won't be easily replaced, but the Bulldogs do have some frontcourt pieces that could come close. First is center Andrew Smith, who shone in his sophomore season with a brilliantly efficient performance in limited attempts. He will have to get better at creating his own offense in the post, not being able to rely on weak-side defenders who collapsed on Howard. But his size (6-foot-11) and interior skills give him a huge advantage in the Horizon League, which often lacks true centers with Smith's frame.

The other is sophomore forward Khyle Marshall, who entered Butler last season as one of the highest-ranked recruits ever to choose Butler. Marshall is a 6-7 forward with an array of talents, chiefly his athleticism. He could be a breakout star as soon as this season. Whether you play in the Horizon League or the Big Ten, that frontcourt tandem is an enviable quality. (Just ask, say, Indiana.)

Butler's backcourt transition could prove much more difficult. Mack is gone, as are solid senior contributors Shawn Vanzant and Zach Hahn. Senior guard Ronald Nored is back, which is good news on two fronts. First, Nored is a great defender, one of the best perimeter defenders in the nation. Second, Nored is a born leader, and his continuity could be crucial for a team that lost so much at the top when Howard and Mack moved on.

Still, there is no obvious replacement for Mack. Junior guard Chase Stigall is an interesting offensive player, but his game is mostly of the spot-up variety (and even then Stigall only made 32 percent of his 3s in 2011). And, in terms of returners, that's pretty much it: Mack, Vanzant, Hahn, Nored and Stigall were basically Butler's only backcourt players last season (at least when Howard wasn't facing up around the perimeter). Who fills that gap?

That brings us to recruiting, the best indicator of whether Butler has turned the past two seasons into a pathway toward long-term excellence. But the 2011 class wasn't a major statement in either direction. There are some intriguing players here, but no one as good as Marshall. The best prospect in the class is probably small forward Roosevelt Jones, who is ranked No. 33 at his position.

Things are looking better for 2012-13, as Stevens landed Arkansas transfer Rotnei Clarke and has already received a commitment from ESPNU top 100 player Kellen Dunham. And Butler has had a hand in high-profile recruitments like that of Indiana commitment Cody Zeller. But the Bulldogs haven't experienced a recruiting revolution just yet. There might be a springboard effect at work eventually, but right now, its impact appears to have been limited.

That means, in 2011-12 at least, Stevens will be doing ... exactly what he's been doing throughout his tenure at the school, actually. He'll be charged with taking a group of talented but not elite players, molding them into a team over the course of the nonconference and Horizon League season, and then out-scouting and out-smarting everyone with more talent along the way.

After all, Butler's recent rise wasn't just luck. It came thanks to Stevens' brilliant work preparing his teams in the past two NCAA tournaments. As we saw last year, it's a mistake to count Butler out. Major pieces have gone, and replacing them won't be easy. But no coach -- frankly, no program -- in the country is better at forging a capital-T Team built to exceed the sum of its parts.

Then you get in the NCAA tournament. Howard makes a last-second tip-in, Nasir Robinson suffers a mental brain fart at the worst possible time, and the next thing you know, you're right back in the Final Four.

The surprising underdog isn't the only reason we love college hoops, but it's definitely one of them. Butler might not be the next Duke -- let's wait a few years before we render that final judgement. In 2011-12, though, merely being Butler ought to be enough.

Matt Howard's odds of playing in the NBA were never very high. The former Butler star had a marvelous career -- he was a four-year Horizon League star, a two-time Horizon League tournament MVP, the 2011 Division I Academic All-American of the Year, and the driving force behind Butler's back-to-back appearances in the national title game -- but NBA scouts tend to care less about those accomplishments than about potential, age, athleticism, and so on. Throw in the difficulty of playing your way onto an NBA roster when the NBA is in the midst of a drastic work stoppage, and this is not exactly a surprise to anyone.

Still, it's good to hear Howard -- one of the more humble and impressive players in the sport -- was able to turn his success at the collegiate level into some sort of pro career. Turns out, that career will be in Greece, where Howard signed a contract with club Olympiacos this week.

In fact, I'd argue that a European career might just be Howard's destiny. Was there a more prototypical old school Euro-style American basketball star in the country last season? Howard is not particularly quick or athletic, but he shoots the ball well from the perimeter and uses angles to his advantage against defenders in the post. Throw in that nasty facial hair Howard rocked during the 2010 NCAA tournament, not to mention his admirable lack of concern for things like "style" or "non-saggy socks that look like they've been washed at least once a season," and he almost feels like a throwback to the first wave of quirky Euros that invaded the NBA in the late 1980s and early 1990s. If you saw Howard in a foreign tournament, pivoting in the lane while the wispy 'stache blows free in the wind, you'd have no idea the dude was American, right? It's a perfect fit.

Butler and Gonzaga are the two kings of college basketball's mid-majors (if you can still call them that), and they'll be starting a home-and-home series in December for the next two seasons, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Butler is to travel to Spokane, Wash., to meet the Zags on Dec. 20. The Bulldogs are to play at Stanford two or three days later. Gonzaga is to visit Hinkle Fieldhouse in December 2012.

“It’s an exciting series, and it’s going to benefit both teams and help them prepare,” Butler associate head coach Matthew Graves said today.

It's a buzz-worthy match-up that brings together two programs that didn't need power conference affiliations to rise up as basketball powerhouses. Gonzaga has won 11 straight regular-season titles in the West Coast Conference, making annual trips to the NCAA tournament during that span. Butler is coming off consecutive national championship game appearances and has seen its profile boosted as well by Brad Stevens and his celebrity status.

The Bulldogs versus Bulldogs games should bring plenty of intrigue, especially this coming season in Spokane. While Butler will be in the process of finding out which players will step up after the departures of Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard, Gonzaga returns a team of veterans that include Elias Harris and Robert Sacre.

It will be a big early-season test for both Cinderella programs and will reunite Stevens and Gonzaga coach Mark Few, who helped each other through rough starts last season, as Andy Katz reported in March.

"We talked through it," Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. "I kept telling him that it would be OK. We were going through something similar [back-to-back losses to Santa Clara and San Francisco]. I kept following them through January and February and compared how we both took care of business."

Like Butler, Gonzaga rallied to win a share of its league title and then won its conference tournament.

"I'm sure the people around the Butler program were lamenting coming off a national championship game with the expectations of all those guys coming back and all that noise," Few said. "But you have to believe in the system. And his guys did."

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Khyle Marshall can’t bring himself to do it.

The Butler forward hasn’t watched tape of the Bulldogs’ ugly loss in the national championship game to Connecticut, and he doesn’t plan to because what‘s done is done. In focusing on the future, Marshall envisions people doubting a team that once again will have to form a new identity.

“They always use what we lost last year as fuel to bash on us and say that we can’t do what we did last year, especially when we did it two years in a row,” Marshall said. “There’s always going to be more doubts, and that’s just something we let go in one ear and out the other. We just worry about our team and just play hard and stay motivated.”

Butler has indeed lost a lot for a second straight offseason -- so much so that it might not even be the favorite to win the Horizon League next season. Shelvin Mack left school for the NBA after his junior year, and the college careers of stalwarts Matt Howard and Shawn Vanzant came to an end as well.

That means without three of his top four scorers, Butler coach Brad Stevens will rely upon Marshall and others to step to the forefront. Marshall was the self-described energy guy for the team as a freshman and shined while playing solid minutes in the NCAA tournament. The Florida native who’s currently playing for USA Basketball’s U-19 world championship team understands he’ll have to do more in order to move into the starting lineup.

After averaging 5.8 points and 3.8 rebounds and buying into Stevens' preference that he bring a rebounding presence off the bench, Marshall has been working on his outside jumper and ball-handling in preparation for a larger role. He was second on the team in field goal percentage and now Stevens wants him to play more small forward. Personally, he has a chip on his shoulder because it appears few outside of Indianapolis think the Bulldogs can actually get back to the Final Four.

“As a team joke going around, we just call ourselves the king of bracketbusters because we’re always messing up people’s brackets,” Marshall said. “That’s something that we love to do. It’s something we just want to continue.

“All we want to do is just prove people wrong.”

Marshall believes the coming season might present an even greater challenge than when Butler lost Gordon Hayward to the NBA draft, and it certainly wasn’t easy getting back to the title game even with a veteran team. Butler was 14-9 at one point last season and needed to learn to stop living off the past, he said. The Bulldogs ended up reeling off 14 straight wins, and America fell in love all over again. The team fell short of the national championship after a horrific night shooting the ball, but Marshall said he’s over it.

“It did take quite a bit [of time],” he said. “Pretty much all you hear is worst shooting performance in NCAA finals history, and that’s something you can’t get rid of. It’s in the books. It’s permanent. It’s something we always got to remember, keep in our minds, and just hope we don’t have a shooting performance like that ever again. It’s something Coach has told us.

“Everybody on campus, they believe we can do it again, and I know our guys they want to do it again. We just need one more step to win it all. They are hungry to win it all.”

Matt Howard, the floppy-haired, salt of the earth star who was one of Butler's symbols during their two runs to the Final Four and played in old sneakers rather than the new Kobes, is now on Twitter and recently promised Facebook updates in promoting a television show.

Howard joined Twitter on Wednesday after signing with an agent and @MHoward54 tweeted about being ready to start training for a pro career.

In the meantime, he's also endorsing CNBC's "American Greed." There was even a viewing party for the show at Butler that asked fans to come watch with Howard.

Really though, Howard will be remembered for his toughness and clutch play. This week, he was named the winner of the Eddie Sutton Tustenugee Award that honors the warrior mentality. Arizona's Derrick Williams, Cal's Jorge Gutierrez, Duke's Kyle Singler and Wisconsin's Jordan Taylor were the other finalists.

"With this award, we are honoring a great player, a warrior, Matt Howard, who places team above self, while also paying homage to a coach, Eddie Sutton, who legacy is steeped in discipline and dedication," Tulsa Sports Charities director Tommy Thompson said in a statement.

Howard, don't ever change.

College basketball has a new award, and this one bears the name of former coach and 804-game winner Eddie Sutton. This award is unique in that it honors the national player of the year who played most like a warrior.

The Eddie Sutton Tustenugee Award honors the tenacity of unselfish play that Sutton demanded. The word "tustenugee," means "warrior" in the language of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

The finalists for the award -- Arizona's Derrick Williams, Butler's Matt Howard, Cal's Jorge Gutierrez, Duke's Kyle Singler, Wisconsin's Jordan Taylor -- represent those ideals. Maybe you've seen Williams playing with a cast over a broken pinkie or Howard with his face bloodied. Gutierrez pestered opponents on both ends of the floor. Singler was last seen getting a floor burn in the NCAA tournament. Taylor willed his team to a win that toppled top-ranked, and at the time previously unbeaten, Ohio State.

"The idea behind this award to to reward both tangible and intangible qualities that help teams win games," said ESPN's Doug Gottlieb, who played for Sutton at Oklahoma State. "Eddie Sutton's coaching style demanded toughness and team play at both ends, so too will this award. In many ways all of these finalists are great players for their teams due to their all around efforts at both ends of the floor."

The winner will be named May 7 in Tulsa.

"I remember growing up watching Coach Sutton's teams and admiring how hard they played and the success they had at Oklahoma State," Taylor said in a statement. "I'm honored to be recognized as a finalist for this award."

HOUSTON -- Shawn Vanzant hung his head exiting the locker room, still unable to believe what a mess of a shooting night it was for Butler in the national championship game.

“Twelve-for-64,” the senior kept muttering as his teammates tried to console him.

One kissed Vanzant on the head, another told him it wasn’t his fault even as he claimed it was, and the senior walked out of Reliant Stadium after a 53-41 loss to Connecticut with a teammate's arm draped over his shoulder.

The Butler Bulldogs made back-to-back runs to the Final Four together, and together America’s underdogs licked their wounds after falling short for a second straight year.

“All the people that played feel like they let us down, and that’s ridiculous,” coach Brad Stevens said. “If someone has to go 12-for-64, these guys have the character to handle it.”

It won’t be easy for Butler to leave Houston without regrets and to make peace with the absolute worst shooting performance in the history of national title games. Butler shot 18.8 percent from the field for the lowest mark in a championship game and the lowest in any NCAA tournament game since 1946. The Bulldogs managed only three -- yes, three -- 2-point field goals.

Shelvin Mack scored 13 points on 4-for-15 shooting, admittedly missing open shots. Shaggy-haired forward Matt Howard finished his storybook career with a 1-for-13 performance and a blood-stained right knee. Andrew Smith, the team’s 6-foot-11 center, scored the team’s first points in the paint on a putback with 6:13 left.

Vanzant, who went 2-for-10, was despondent over the 52 missed field goals. Many of them were easy shots, but Butler also credited a UConn defense that blocked 10 shots.

In the other locker room, freshman Jeremy Lamb leaned back in his chair and extended a long arm to demonstrate how his length might have bothered Mack. “If I’m off you, people think I can’t contest, but I can.”

The Huskies’ frontline was especially good, with 6-foot-9 Alex Oriakhi and 6-foot-8 Roscoe Smith blocking four shots apiece.

“UConn is the best shot-contest team we’ve played, and it’s not even close,” Stevens said. “They’re long. They’re athletic. They’re active. He [Huskies coach Jim Calhoun] had freshmen playing like seniors out there defensively.”

Stevens indicated that UConn disrupted them by using the Butler Way on defense: “Guard so hard so when they get looks, it’s not as comfortable.” The Bulldogs proceeded to go out with a clank.

After Chase Stigall hit a 3-pointer coming out of the halftime break to give the Bulldogs a 25-19 lead, they missed their next 13 shots over the next 6:46 while the Huskies went on a 14-1 run.

“Coach kept us calm until we realized it was going to be tough,” Andrew Smith said. “It felt like we weren’t supposed to win that game.”

Said Lamb: “I saw one time we scored, one of them put his head down. I said, ‘We got ‘em.’”

Butler (28-10) loses five seniors and possibly Mack to the NBA draft after once again capturing the nation’s imagination with an unlikely NCAA tournament run. The Bulldogs had reeled off 14 consecutive wins, including upsets of Pittsburgh, Wisconsin and Florida, to get to the Final Four as a No 8 seed.

Not every fairy tale -- or even its sequel -- can have a happy ending. Stevens still found a way to give solace to his players, telling them his only regret was being unable to coach on Senior Day due to blurred vision.

“The title, the net, the net, the trophy would be nice, but you still have the relationships,” said Stevens, the 34-year-old bespectacled baby face.

“It’s really hard, but as I told ‘em, I don’t care if they make shots. I don’t love ‘em any less because we lost.”

Said Howard: “Right now, it’s frustrating. It’s tough, but I know you’ll look back at some point and be pretty proud. The team believed down the very end."

The Butler Bulldogs just simply missed.

HOUSTON -- Two years. Two storybook runs to the national title game. Two brutal, demoralizing finishes.

Butler's first run at glory ended with a just-this-close heave from Gordon Hayward. Instead, Duke took the title. This year, Butler's second chance at history was ruined by a score of misses -- 52 of them, to be exact -- as the Bulldogs shot themselves out of the mid-major record books and into the wrong kind of historical company in debilitating fashion.

The Connecticut Huskies are your 2011 national champions, winning 53-41 on Monday.

The Bulldogs' epic flameout will be the story of this game, of course. Butler's tale of back-to-back Final Fours -- both of which brutally ended without a title -- is too good to fade to the background. You can't shoot the worst field goal percentage in NCAA championship game history (18.8 percent) -- the third-worst in NCAA tournament history -- and expect to avoid the spotlight.

But it'd be a disservice to Connecticut to ignore the Huskies' story, to treat them as some sort of boring champion-by-default. UConn might not have the underdog angle, but its is a tale of defiant redemption and the power of brilliant individual talent -- a tale of Jim Calhoun and Kemba Walker -- and what can be achieved when a coach and his players meld the two.

Connecticut wasn't its usually brilliant self on the offensive end. Rather, the Huskies won this title with defense. They locked down the Bulldogs in the half court -- Butler shot 12-of-64 from the field, 9-of-33 from the 3-point line and 3-of-31 on 2-point attempts -- and even when UConn didn't challenge Butler's shots (and it usually did), the Huskies' supreme athleticism irrevocably broke Butler's offensive rhythm.

Simply put, no matter how good your defense is, you can't shoot as badly as Butler did and expect to win a national championship. Not when Walker and these Huskies are on the other side. Not ever. The Bulldogs never shot the ball well, but their second half was a special exercise in offensive frustration. With 12:29 left in the second half, Butler still had made only one 2-point attempt, a first-half hook shot by forward Andrew Smith. That's when guard Shawn Vanzant found enough room on a baseline inbounds play to knock down a 15-foot jumper. But Vanzant's next attempt was swatted by UConn forward Roscoe Smith, and the Bulldogs were right back to square one -- unable to find any easy shots against a longer, stronger and more athletic UConn team. The Bulldogs finished with three (three!) 2-pointers -- no one else in title-game history has had fewer than nine -- and a grand total of two points in the paint (UConn had 26), and that's your game right there.
Understatement alert: Butler did not shoot the ball well. And, yes, much of that offensive impotence was self-inflicted. But the Bulldogs have been a very good offensive team for much of the season and all of the tournament, and very good offensive teams don't just stop scoring points for no reason. In other words, Connecticut's defense deserves much of the credit for making everything so difficult for the Bulldogs.

Walker was quiet for much of the second half, but with 10 minutes left, he did what Kemba Walker does. Cutting to the rim, he received a bounce pass from Jeremy Lamb and finished with a beautiful floating layup that softly nestled through the nylon and gave Connecticut an 11-point lead. This performance wasn't vintage Walker -- he finished with 16 points on 5-of-19 shooting from the field -- but this season was all his, and this national title cements his legacy as one of Calhoun's greatest players.

No Butler player will have to apologize to his teammates. Or all of them will. Either way, the poor shooting was evenly dispersed across every starter (Matt Howard was 1-of-13, Shelvin Mack was 4-of-15, Vanzant was 2-of-10, Chase Stigall was 3-of-11 and Andrew Smith was 2-of-9) and reserve (Zach Hahn, Ronald Nored and Chrishawn Hopkins combined to go 0-for-6). It was just ... bad.

Strangely enough, this felt like Butler's one big moment, the time when the real-life Hoosiers comparisons came true, the culminating moment of a tournament -- and possibly an era -- defined by the unlikely mid-majors that barnstormed the Final Four. Instead, one of hoops' modern powers used its superior athleticism and talent.

Instead, the Bulldogs shot their way out of history. Instead, even as Butler slowly becomes a national brand -- and its coach, Brad Stevens, becomes a household name -- on the floor, where the only thing that counts is the final score, the sport's entrenched powers still reign.

HOUSTON -- The court is a glistening pane. The stadium is a pristine artifice. The cheerleaders are smiling; the uniforms are cleanly designed. Everything in Reliant Arena is pretty.

Everything, that is, except the offense.

Instead, these two defenses were the story of the first half of the 2011 national championship game, as Butler and Connecticut played a slogging slugfest caused less by bad offense -- although there was plenty of that -- than flawless defensive rotations, great on-ball pressure, deflections and blocks.

Butler leads 22-19 at the half, and were it not for a last-second Shelvin Mack 3, the first 20 minutes would have ended with the score tied at 19.

The pertinent statistic -- 15-of-58 -- is not hard to locate. That's these two teams' combined first-half field goal mark. Why so bad? It's not just missed shots. The reasons:

• Butler is everywhere on defense. The Bulldogs are challenging every inbounds play all the way out to half court, they're jumping on post possessions as quickly as possible and they're rotating to prevent Kemba Walker from gaining any advantage on ball screens.
• The same goes for Connecticut. Butler's high-screen offense -- in which the Bulldogs run high ball screen after high ball screen at the top of the key and on the wing -- hasn't yielded anything, because Connecticut is doubling every screen. After that, the Huskies are rotating fast enough and using their superior length well enough to challenge Butler's outside shooters. Things haven't been any easier in the post. Butler forwards Matt Howard and Andrew Smith are yet to get a truly clean look at the basket. Connecticut's size has been too much thus far.
• Perhaps the most interesting matchups to watch the rest of the game will be who guards Walker and Jeremy Lamb. Most expected Butler stopper Ronald Nored to spend most of his time on Walker, but for much of the half, Nored shaded the taller, lankier Lamb, and he effectively shut Lamb out of the game. Walker drew combined defensive attention -- Shawn Vanzant, Mack and Nored all took turns guarding him, and as above, Butler was quick to run second defenders at him on high screens. That Brad Stevens went with these assignments is both surprising and, well, not. The man always has something up his sleeve.

Keep an eye on the defensive adjustments on both sides going forward. These two teams have shot the ball poorly, but it's not necessarily about nerves or tight rims or simultaneous off nights. We're watching a thoroughly ugly game in a thoroughly pretty setting. But if you like comprehensive defense, there's nothing ugly about it at all.

HOUSTON -- Before two magical runs to the national title game, before Brad Stevens became a star, before the sports world knew Butler as the best story in college hoops, and before Matt Howard's droopy socks became nearly as famous as Blue II, the school’s ubiquitous mascot -- before Butler became the Butler we know today -- three high school seniors had a decision to make.

In 2007, with then-coach Todd Lickliter leaving to become the newest head coach at Iowa and a young, unproven assistant taking over the reigns, did Howard, as well as guards Zach Hahn and Shawn Vanzant, still want to come to Butler?

That’s when the three did something that would come to define their class, their team, and the philosophy of Stevens' program. They acted together.

"We got on a three-way phone call," Hahn said. "And we all were asking, you know, 'Are we going here?' And I told them, 'Whatever we're doing, we're doing it together.'"

On that very same call, a decision was reached: Howard, Hahn and Vanzant would give Stevens a shot. They would play together at Butler.

"We’ve never looked back." Hahn said. "We’ve only grown and improved since. And we’ve been best friends the whole time."

If it was impossible for the three to realize the bond they would form in Hinkle Fieldhouse, they could never have predicted the success that was to come. Four years later, Howard, Hahn and Vanzant have won four Horizon League titles, three Horizon League tournament titles and 117 total games. With a win Monday night, the trio -- along with unsung career reserves Alex Anglin and Grant Leiendecker -- will tie the class of 2010 as the winningest in Butler history.

Of course, a win Monday night would accomplish something far greater: It would make the Butler Bulldogs, 2010 national runners-up, the first non-major conference national champion in more than two decades and one of the most unlikely underdog stories in the history of the sport.

Not bad for three guys on a conference call.

“Those guys mean a lot to me,” Howard said. “We’ve been through a lot together. This whole thing has been a lot of fun to do with them.”

Howard has become the de facto star of the class, which wasn’t hard to predict. The Connersville, Ind., native was a three-star recruit -- practically a blue-chip prospect by Butler standards -- and even received interest from Indiana and Wake Forest, among others.

Vanzant and Hahn were more typical Butler recruits: two-star guys recruited by Stevens and the other members of Lickliter’s staff as much for their intangibles as their pure ability.

Before their commitments, Hahn and Howard shared similar backgrounds. For one, both are Indiana natives borne of the big-gym basketball culture that still thrives throughout the state, even in small towns and struggling post-industrial exurbs. Hahn’s hometown of New Castle, Ind., is home to the largest high school basketball gym in the world, Chrysler High School’s New Castle Fieldhouse. (The gym seats 9,325 high school -- yes, high school -- basketball fans. And in case you wanted another classic Indiana-loves-its-hoops statistic: Nine of the nation's 11 largest high school basketball gyms reside in the Hoosier State.) The two played with and against each other in high school, and knew each other before deciding on their Butler futures.

Vanzant, on the other hand, grew up in Tampa, Fla., miles away from small-town Indiana -- both geographically and emotionally. Vanzant’s mother passed away before he was 2. His father encountered medical and financial difficulties and his brother was imprisoned for seven felonies, including the sale of cocaine. After the arrest of his brother, the guard was close to moving to Cleveland to live with relatives when a mother of Vanzant’s high school teammate took him in.

Since then, Vanzant -- who has since settled on a post-hoops career of counseling troubled youths and is eager to deflect pity about his childhood -- has formed a special bond with his coach and his classmates.

“Coach and I have a special bond,” Vanzant said. “In a lot of ways I feel like he’s part of the senior club, too, because that was his first year as coach and he’s been here four years now. He’s been there for me through a lot of family issues, and he’s someone I’ll talk to long after he stops being my coach.”

Hahn said Butler was, in so many words, a family -- not only for Vanzant but for all of its players.

“I think it’s that way for everyone, whether you’ve had hardships in your life or the most perfect childhood imaginable growing up,” Hahn said. “This is a well-grounded team, and a team that you can really rely on, and that’s been important not only for him, but for everybody.”

Though Howard, a former Horizon League Player of the Year, has been the most important piece in Butler’s run, Hahn and Vanzant have played key roles throughout these two dream seasons. That was the case Saturday night, when Hahn -- who scored nine combined points in the Bulldogs’ first four NCAA tournament games -- hit two 3-pointers and made a gorgeous reverse layup in quick succession to give his team a one-point lead with less than 15 minutes to play.

Meanwhile, Vanzant hit arguably the biggest bucket of the game -- a corner 3-pointer that gave Butler a seven-point lead with three minutes to play. VCU never closed the gap again.

Thanks in part to those plays, Stevens’ first freshman class has a chance to make history Monday night. Frankly, with back-to-back Final Four runs under their belts, not to mention an unprecedented growth in the stature of Butler basketball, they already have.

And whether Monday ends in a victory or not, this class will always share a unique, common bond: underdogs, heroes, teammates, best friends, brothers.

“You think about [the end of your career] a little bit,” Hahn said. “You’ll see your guys in the morning after a game, or on the bus and in the locker room. But we’re not done yet.”

HOUSTON -- Kemba Walker, Nolan Smith and Shelvin Mack were the three standout guards for the USA Select team in the summer, competing against the national team that was prepping for the FIBA World Championships in Turkey.

Smith went on to lead Duke to a No. 1 seed and was a strong contender for national player of the year. Walker was a headline act all season -- from dominating the Maui Invitational to hitting game-winning shots against Texas and Villanova, to orchestrating the Huskies' improbable five-games-in-five-days Big East tournament title.

But somehow Mack got lost a bit during the season. He did score 25 at Louisville, but the game was over soon after it started as the Bulldogs were crushed. Mack had a chance to steal some of the stage against Duke in New Jersey, especially with guard Kyrie Irving getting hurt in that game, but cramping kept him out of the lineup for most of the second half. And then his productivity and lack of drama were forgotten amid the Bulldogs' midseason struggles in the Horizon League.

One of his former USA teammates never forgot, though.

"I put him right up there," Walker said of Mack. "He doesn't get the recognition that myself and Nolan and Jimmer [Fredette] and us got, but his team is playing in the national championship game. What more can you say? He's a great player and he definitely deserves a lot of attention."

Mack has indeed emerged again, proving to be the player that he was a year ago in leading Butler to the national title game with Gordon Hayward and Matt Howard. He's done it again this tournament with 30 points against Pitt, 27 against Florida and 24 against VCU.

And now Walker and Mack will compete, although not guard each other, for the national championship Monday night at Reliant Stadium.

"There are a lot of similarities," Mack said of the pair. "He does a great job of making his teammates better. A few games this year, he had a chance to take the game-winning shot, but he passed it off to someone else. I do the same thing. It's just the right basketball play."

"Just his ability to make shots," Walker said of Mack. "He makes tough shots all the time that are really hard to guard. He makes shots where you're playing great defense, but he just has better offense. I definitely saw that, playing against the USA team and I think that's what makes Shelvin so good."

Both are juniors and both are at the very least mid-first-round NBA draft picks if they choose to declare by April 24.

"The game will be decided by those two guys," said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who is an assistant coach on the USA national team and the director of the junior national team.

Walker played for the 2008 U-18 group that finished 4-1 and won silver in Argentina. He was the MVP, averaging 13.4 points, 4.6 rebounds and five assists a game. Walker declined to participate the next summer in New Zealand and Mack said he was Walker's replacement. And then he and Howard helped lead the Americans to the gold medal for the first time since 1991, with Mack averaging 5.9 points and 2.9 rebounds.

"They’re two different players, but the game will be decided by those two and who plays the best will win since everyone else on the two teams will cancel out," Boeheim said. "Kemba has been the best player in the country by far in the last 10 games. He did hit a dead spot in our league, but the first 10 games and the last 10 games he's been by far the most dominant player in the country.

"Mack is good, really good, and in watching Mack and Kemba the last two summers it's amazing how much they've improved," Boeheim said. "They're a great case for staying in school."

Washington coach Lorenzo Romar, who co-coached the select team with Villanova's Jay Wright, said Walker, Mack and Smith held their own against the NBA guards like Rajon Rondo and Russell Westbrook.

But Romar fawned over how much Mack and Walker have developed.

"If you need a big basket, Mack makes those shots," Romar said. "He has ice in his veins. Kemba is more of a guard who can do what he wants to break you down and bust you. Mack still does it but within what [Butler] is doing. Kemba is more dynamic, with more flash. Shelvin is solid in every sense of the word. Kemba is probably the player who you pay to see play and Shelvin will also be the player at the end of the day who is going to lead his team to a win, just not in as flashy a manner."

Mack and Walker have been tremendous leaders for their respective teams. Mack obviously has more help with senior Howard and outspoken guards Ronald Nored and Shawn Vanzant. Walker has had to do most of this on his own, with some locker room help from senior Donnell Beverly.

And Mack has offered up some sage advice on how to lead a team in the tournament.

"Trust what you're doing, do what you trust," Mack said. "If you can improve, have people buy in to your system, great things will happen because you all have faith in each other and you'll have a lot of success."

While Mack has more leadership help from experienced teammates, he has to do much more offensively than Walker since Connecticut has more talent surrounding its junior guard.

"There's no secret that we're here because he's carried us in a few games," said Howard. "He's approached every game the same way. He's still playing within our offense and that's the thing about it. He just makes plays and makes shots. That's what we've come to expect from him because of the work he puts in."

If it sounds familiar to what is said about Walker, then that's because it is: "We gave him a road map and he drove us tremendously," said UConn coach Jim Calhoun.

Of Mack, Calhoun said that he has gone under the radar and that he can match up with anybody and is a terrific basketball player.

The mutual admiration between Mack and Walker extends well beyond each other, to their teammates, to the respective staffs, to everyone involved in USA Basketball the past few summers.

"Let's face it, the reason Butler is winning is that they have a close-to-lottery pick again this year," Boeheim said of Mack. "With Kemba, he made as big a jump from his sophomore year to his junior year as I've ever seen. But Kemba will have to have a big game for them to win."

Brad Stevens, Shelvin Mack, Matt Howard and Shaka Smart on Butler's 70-62 win.

Butler's Matt Howard talks about the win over VCU and going to another title game.

HOUSTON -- For the Butler Bulldogs, hitting their stride meant decelerating to a walk.

They’re better when they’re slower. The more deliberate the game, the more of a half-court skirmish it becomes, the greater the chance that Butler out-executes its opponent and grinds it into defeat.

In the Bulldogs’ nine losses, the average possession count is 67.3, according to Ken Pomeroy’s statistics. In their 27 victories, the average is 64.4. That may not sound like a vast gulf, but it’s the difference between ranking 133rd and 278th nationally in tempo.

And Butler has been at its slowest and best in the past few weeks. In its current 13-game winning streak, the Bulldogs’ games have averaged 62.2 possessions.

That makes the contrast Saturday against Virginia Commonwealth rather stark. VCU has excelled this NCAA tournament at speeding up opponents, with its previous three games averaging 69.7 possessions. The Rams’ “Havoc” style was especially effective in the Southwest Regional final against Kansas, which was harassed into eight first-half turnovers and gave up a lot of open shots in transition as the Rams raced to a 14-point halftime lead.

So the push and pull of pace will be paramount Saturday when the two teams hook up in the "Believe It or Not!" national semifinal.

“Butler is as sound as anybody we’ve played all year,” VCU coach Shaka Smart said. “They’re not going to just start playing your way because you ask them to -- you have to force them to. That’s going to be a battle of wills. It’s going to be a big-time challenge for us to constantly try to get playing a little big faster.

“The other end of it, we have to push the ball on the offensive end and get them on their heels. Anytime you’re playing a great defensive team, the best way to battle against their defense is to beat them down the floor, before they get set, attack them with different actions and with drives and kicks.”

VCU wants havoc. Butler would prefer lying in a hammock.

OK, that’s an exaggeration. What the Bulldogs would really prefer to do is play a half-court street fight -- they’re more physical than most teams think, especially defensively. On the offensive end, they will run a clock-consuming dribble-drive weave up top before looking for perimeter shooters or entering the ball into the post.

They’re never tentative, but rarely in a hurry.

But according to the Bulldogs, they’re not fixated with slowing the game down -- merely with running their sets until the ideal scoring opportunity presents itself.

“I don’t remember coach [Brad Stevens] ever mentioning tempo to us,” forward Matt Howard said. “It’s about running the offense. If somebody’s going to press us, let’s break that press with our set and then get into our offense. We don’t really look at tempo. That’s not something we focus on.”

Full-court pressure was a nightmare for Butler way back in November against Louisville. The Cardinals heated the Bulldogs into a panic, forcing 17 turnovers in a surprisingly easy victory.

Butler obviously has come light years since then -- but a vulnerability to pressure was also a factor as recently as its Sweet 16 victory over Wisconsin. The involuntarily accelerated Bulldogs went from having the game in control to watching a 17-point lead dwindle all the way to four in less than six minutes. They hung on in the end, but not without some tension.

Butler looked much more prepared for pressure in its next game, against Florida, often utilizing its big men as receivers on the inbounds pass and then passing diagonally to the guards to get into the half court. The Gators know how to accelerate a game under Billy Donovan -- and they succeeded in doing so for a while against the Bulldogs -- but it wasn’t enough to win the game.

It’s worth noting right about here that Smart was an assistant to Donovan in 2008-09, so he’ll undoubtedly have insight from the Florida staff on what worked and didn’t work against Butler.

But mostly, both teams will try to do what they do best. VCU will attempt to press, force turnovers and shoot 3-pointers in transition before Butler sets up its barbed-wire half-court D. The Bulldogs will attempt to break pressure, patiently execute on offense and make this a pass-and-screen clinic.

The similarities between the two teams stop at mid-major surprises with gifted young coaches. After that, there isn’t much in common when it comes to style of play.

Whichever style wins out Saturday night will probably dictate which teams is still playing on Monday.