The Road Ends Here....
By Allan Lewis – Alestle Sports Editor
There is a common thread in life between music and sports. Humans live vicariously through these things and become emotionally attached, although we are without direct involvement in their existence. Why is it we hear a song and suddenly mentally crawl into a different time, space or feeling experienced in life? Why do we live and die with each missed free throw? This certain psychological figment is transfixed onto our existence and for some reason or another we cannot imagine ourselves without these things. It is just one of the fascinating phenomenons in life. Where the hell am I going with this? It all has a point, I promise.
Monday marked the end of college basketball season. SIUE has not been playing for over a month, but yesterday we reached the climax. For those in Durham, North Carolina as well as millions of people scattered throughout the country with an unmerited emotional attachment fueled by the existence of runaway bandwagon superiority in the world of sports this was a special moment. Those clinging onto emotions based on financial implications waiting at the end of a broken bracket pool felt the love too. The Duke Blue Devils won the national championship.
Duke unquestionably was the better basketball team in Indianapolis Monday night riding a robotic fundamentally sound scheme against the Butler Bulldogs, taking home the wooden plank of excellence with a 61-59 victory.
Don't they look excited? -MCT CAMPUS
For those of you relishing in Satan’s excellence after Sunday without a degree from Duke, or a membership card in the Cameron Crazies, I am not afraid to call you out for ruining March Madness. Consider this, there are 347 teams in Division I basketball. around 70 of them live in the “power conferences.” The whole “mid-major” discussion and comparison to “Hoosiers” brought on by Butler’s not-so-surprising run to Indianapolis (They were ranked No. 11 in the pre-season) is based on one thing many people seem to be missing the point on. It is all about money. Duke spends $9 million on men’s basketball annually. Butler spends around $1 million, and does not play scholarship football like Duke does, so the majority of its athletic budget is actually tied up in basketball. Duke is not Goliath from an enrollment standpoint by any means, they have an undergraduate population in the 6,000’s, while Butler’s enrollment runs about 4,200. SIUE is bigger than both Duke and Butler combined, yet Duke has the resources to continually be a basketball powerhouse. The same goes for teams like the University of Illinois, whom is heavily fanned upon on this campus just because of the State connection. I have never understood the purpose of getting behind the man. The man who brings us all down. College basketball needs a revolution. There has to be some way for the sport to evolve past the shadow cast upon it in the name of greed. Butler almost gave us this. Gordon Hayward was an inch away from revolutionizing the status-quo of the NCAA twice, but his efforts provided futile, and the nation encountered a wide range of emotions as a result of his missed Larry Bird base-line floater, and the half-court shot that grazed off the backboard, the front of the rim and its rear before slowly descending onto the paint in the lane. That shot was suspended in mid-air for what seemed to be 10 minutes, although it ended in a blur.
Gordon Hayward of Butler (20) shoots over Brian Zoubek of Duke (55), but misses in the final seconds of the NCAA Final Four championship game at Lucas Oil Stadiuim in Indianapolis, Indiana, Monday, April 5, 2010. Duke defeated Butler, 61-59. (Mark Cornelison/Lexington Herald-Leader/MCT)
We almost had the “Hoosiers sequel,” as politically incorrect as it was on the first reference to this year’s Butler team as the millionth. “the Butler had almost done it, if the Clue reference wasn’t just as dull. While the Bulldogs covered their faces in shame underneath their uniforms, complete with the Horizon League emblem, the Blue Devils did exactly what we expected them to do. Point their first to the sky, walk onto the court victoriously, like they were supposed to do and if they felt like cracking a smile, one or two of them did it for a second. It wasn’t the bedlam we would expect from a national championship celebration, but rather a pompous right to superiority being fulfilled. When you have silk uniforms with your logo meticulously shining through with pillars on the back of it, when you have the resources to give your head coach a net-worth of $12 million, when you can have any player in the nation under your control for at least a season you are expected to win. Duke reacted like a team expected to win a national championship, and you know what? they did it. $8 million bought them a one-inch advantage on the court against Butler.
As far as the game went, Duke showed they were capable of imposing their will on Butler if they really wanted to. They did not. The Blue Devils, were able to easily post up and hook the ball down the hole. They could jump at an inbound pass and tip it in with little pressure. They controlled the boards in the second half, after the Bulldogs rushed to every loose ball in the first half to hold a 7 rebound advantage. The Butler team we saw Monday played with more heart than any basketball team I have ever seen. Duke went through the motions and did what they were supposed to do. Yet, $8 million still only bought them an inch, but that inch was all-important in bringing a championship to Durham, and a big “take that” to the North Carolina Tar Heels, last year’s victors and the Blue Devils biggest rivals.
The line in Hoosiers goes “let’s do it for all the small schools that never had a chance,” For me emotionally, this was SIUE playing for the national championship. Butler represented us all. Every team in the Ohio Valley Conference, including Murray State, whom lost to Butler in the tournament’s second round. It was for Murray State. It was for SIUE. It was for Morehead State, Austin Peay, Tennessee Tech, Tennessee State, Eastern Illinois, Southeast Missouri State, Eastern Kentucky, UT Martin and Jacksonville State. It really was. It was for the Atlantic Sun, the Atlantic Ten, the Summit League, the Big West, West Coast Conference, the Sun Belt, the Big South, the Missouri Valley Conference, the MAC, the MEAC, the SWAC, the CAA, the Ivy League, the America East Conference, the Big Sky, the Southland, the NEC, Patriot League and all the Independents. Butler’s run was that important. The Horizon League was not the only conference being represented by Butler in the championship.
The day before the championship, Easter Sunday, I decided on a whim to go to Indianapolis to embrace some of the Final Four atmosphere. The Goo Goo Dolls were playing a free concert at White River State park. Although I had to be back by Monday morning, and was unable to get a true feel for the Butler culture and the true emotion of losing a championship, I did get a pretty good feel for their fan base, which extends beyond its tiny undergraduate population. This was not a bandwagon situation, a basketball-crazed city got behind one of its small college basketball entities and joined along for the ride. IUPUI became Butler fans. All of the University of Indiana’s extended branches in the city became Bulldogs as well. It was really a special moment for the city, as blue poured throughout the park, as I payed $9 for a beer donning an SIUE shirt, representing everything Butler stands for. When a random person driving down the road honked their horns at me yelling “go Butler!” or “go dawgs!” I replied enthusiastically with the same. We were in this together. I was even asked by someone what my shirt said by two people, one of which was a 12 year old flirting with me (gross) and another a student from Butler. “Well, we are SIUE, we are new to Division I, you haven’t heard of us yet, but you will.” I tell this to myself all the time. The Cougars are rising, and have everything as an institution to be special. Right now, no one outside of St. Louis really knows who SIUE is. Not everyone buys into the notion of supporting mid-major college athletics. At the OVC tournament, I ran into a journalist who had no idea who was favored in the semi-final match-up between Eastern Illinois and Murray State. He was not revoked his credentials and no one physically assaulted him, although I thought about it more than once.
The sad thing is you have to do something special like Butler to be recognized in the canyon of college basketball. You have to be in that category with Butler or George Mason to be recognized. As much of a shame as it is, the finances don’t always favor notoriety. I could not help but thinking throughout this concert how high these Butler fans surrounding me really are at the moment. I was not thinking about the endless flow of marijuana vapor clouding the air, but rather the emotional high they hold as flag bearers. As a united force crashing the big dance. Also, I thought about the heart break and silence felt throughout Hinkle Fieldhouse, Lucas Oil Stadium and that very park I was in Sunday night following Hayward’s shot that went awry. The emotions of 50,000 people singing along to “Iris” Sunday night, the emotions of a missed buzzer-beater, they all share the same values that make these things special to the millions of people who find it important. Some people say “what’s so great about watching a bunch of people fulfill athletic dreams you are not directly involved in? Sports suck.” It’s the way people come together. It’s the Michigan State fan coming out to a concert freshly painted in green with a spartan hat despite his team losing to the home-town team the night before. People would fight for their team, some would die for their team, and Butler represented Indianapolis and all the mid-majors of the world to the best of their ability Monday night. There are no second chances, no what-ifs about Hayward’s final shot falling or a few whistles going the other way. There is still a gray area between charging and blocking. Everything Butler did is motivation. Here may be gone, but tomorrow is bright. November may be seven months away, but penetrating into the college basketball spotlight doesn’t seem to be as much of a challenge as it was 3 weeks ago, all thanks to Butler.
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