The game could be summed up in the scores from each half: Duke won by a point in the first half, 33-32, and by a point in the second half, 28-27.
No one, except maybe some folks Indianapolis, expected this matchup in the title game. It was reminiscent of 1979, when little Indiana State took on big ol’ Michigan State for the championship. The result was the same with the upstart “mid-major” coming up just a bit short. There is not enough room in one blog column to cram in all of the stories that could be told of the journey of this Butler team along the tournament road to the title contest, or of the legend that grew along that same path, so I won’t try.
Though it was neutral site, Butler played in front of a “home crowd” in Indy with the vast majority of the more than 70,000 fans cheering for the Bulldogs. However, the extra support wasn’t enough to get the offense going. The Bulldogs shot 20-58 from the field. And still thye stayed in the contest.
If there were marquis players on this year’s Duke squad, and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski probably likes it best when there aren’t, they would have to be Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer, and Nolan Smith. To go along with the great defensive effort from the Blue Devils, they still had to get 19, 15, and 13 points, respectively, from those three.
No team led by more than six in the game. And even at the end there was one more chance for an ending that many would have called Hoosiers-like. Butler’s leader, Gordon Hayward, had only 12 on the night, but was clearly the lead ‘Dog. He threw up one last attempt from halfcourt, which hit the backboard and front iron and fell away.
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