For the Bulldogs its the Final Four once more

First appeared on March 30, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack and you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile or you may find yourself in the Final Four and you may ask yourself ‘well, how did I get here?’ In what many thought was an anthem for Butler’s 2010 NCAA Tournament run, these are words from the iconic Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime”.


OK so maybe iconic is a stretch, and yes I added the part about the Final Four, but for what Bulldog fans thought was ‘once in a lifetime’ has proven otherwise. After defeating a surging Florida Gators squad, Butler is headed to Houston for their second consecutive Final Four. And aside from being impressive, this feat also stands as validation that Brad Stevens is one of the best coaches in the country.

The Dogs have punched their ticket to Houston and nothing, including a ruptured oxygen tank or really bad portrayal of an Astronaut by Bill Paxton, can slow down their arrival in ‘Space City’ now. And yet the experts continue to wonder aloud “How did they get here?” They didn’t dominate the Horizon League as they have in the past and, after losing to 3 tournament qualifiers early, Florida State became their only quality win in the non-conference season.

It also bears mentioning their first two victories in the NCAA Tournament were by a total of just 3 points. Butler is perhaps best explained as the closest thing we’ve seen to an “Unsolved Mystery” since the days Robert Stack was chasing down Nessie and D.B. Cooper .

So what makes Butler so good? How have they won 12 straight games in March since 2009? Another Final Four? I could try to explain the offensive patience Butler plays with or break down their excellent on the ball defense, but what really separates these Dogs from the teams they’ve beaten to this point is they simply don’t quit.

We hear the word resilient repeated time and again. But these guys are resiliency personified. They are like cockroaches in tennis shoes. It doesn’t matter if you stomp them with the heel of your size 14 Dingo, unload half a can of Raid on them, drop the business end of a sledge hammer on them so hard you crack your ceramic tile or get their 6’10 center to foul out of the game after you’ve already been dominating them inside, you simply can’t kill them. There is no quit in these Dogs.

Outwork, out hustle, out-tough- whatever the terminology you choose, they all describe Butler. Gator Coach Billy Donovan was fully aware of it after his team fell to the Bulldogs 74-71 in overtime, “…there were an enormous amount of loose balls that we did not come down with that they came down with” Donvan admitted afterwards.

There is no magic bullet to explain the Bulldogs. They are a kaleidoscope of hard work, resiliency, toughness and a fundamental trust in each other. If you wrapped all this up in a burrito and sold it in a roadside taco stand the wrapper would read “The Butler Way”.

Of course I think they’ve trademarked that so I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s probably not wise to be taking business advice from a part time pretend sports writer anyway (in other words I’m not taking the fall for your failed taco stand). Note to VCU coach Shaka Smart, if you don’t know what “The Butler Way” is, you might want to look it up before Saturday. Or have a taco and hope for the best.


© 2011 Eric Walker Williams

It's March-where did you expect Butler to be?

First appeared on March 22, 2011
in The Lebanon Reporter

Four teams from the Hoosier state earned bids to this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. In the interest of becoming the first to truly present a “Fair and Balanced” point of view, I will now dissect the performances of all four teams to this point; impartially and equally.


For reasons best not mentioned here I’ve never cared for Indiana State, but they had a nice season that ended when Syracuse hammered them Friday. Now, on to Purdue. Just when everything in Boiler land appeared to be peaches and cream, they were apparently instead peaches and herb. The impact of losing a player is unpredictable. It can be what you expect as teams spiral into a self-destructive abyss (see Michigan State), but in other cases it can force those remaining to gel while propelling the level of play.

Playing shorthanded is nothing new to the Boilers of course, so it should come as no surprise they were stellar against St. Peter’s in the opening round. This being said, it was a great season. It was more than most predicted. Conference Player of the Year and Coach of the Year, a shot at the Big Ten title down the stretch. And while Ryne Smith’s 20 points Sunday may have temporarily silenced the voices chanting “find a third scorer” in Matt Painter’s head, it was the defense that let him down in the end.

Some experts said laterally Purdue was the best defensive team in the nation, but VCU carved the Boilers up vertically driving gaps to the basket. It was the closest thing to “running the ball downhill” you will see in a basketball game and the result was a 30-12 points in the paint differential.

At 27-6, Notre Dame was probably the best kept secret in the state this year. With four players averaging double figures, balance carried the Irish all season. After rocketing their way up the Top 20 and dispatching of Akron, Sunday night’s match up with Florida State proved two oft-used clichés in those “who live by the 3 die by the 3” and “offense sells tickets, defense wins games”. Florida State smothered the Irish and locked down Senior stand-out Ben Hansbrough before moving on.

Meanwhile, somebody needs to tell Butler it’s not 2010 anymore. Somebody needs to remind them Milwaukee swept them in Horizon League play this year. Somebody needs to You Tube Gordon Hayward so Brad Stevens can see his best player is dealing in Utah right now.

What Butler fans discovered over the weekend, aside from the fact that Alec Baldwin is apparently a shill for Capital One now, is that there is some fight left in their Dogs. Especially Senior forward Matt Howard. Howard is gangly. Howard is awkward. He has a crooked nose and a hairdo that looks like it just walked off the set of Starksy and Hutch, but he is the heart and soul of this team and he simply knows how to play. Howard’s effectiveness is rooted in great intelligence and an uncanny knack for anticipation.

Shelviin Mack was huge too. The Junior guard proved again he’s most comfortable on the biggest of stages by drilling an array of huge shots en route to 30 points Saturday. But it wasn’t Howard and Mack alone. Shawn Vanzant made some key plays while Freshman Khyle Marshall was solid defensively and rebounded well, despite giving up considerable size.

So here we are once again. A familiar place where Butler remains the only hope left for Hoosiers everywhere. So we stand shoulder to shoulder singing the Butler war song beneath the Hoosier sky.

© 2011 Eric Walker Williams

The art of picking wisely

First appeared on March 15th,2011
in The Lebanon Reporter

Don’t look now but here we go again. What are we looking at- 64? 65? 98? How many teams are they letting in this year? It really doesn’t matter it’s still the greatest time of the year and no that doesn’t mean the return of the McRib or having to “spring forward”. Rather the NCAA Basketball Tournament is upon us again. And with the return of March Madness comes the expectation that everyone from President Obama to Mahmoud Ahmedinejad will wrestle with the prospect of filling out a competitive tournament bracket. And something tells me, competitive bracket or not, Ahmedinejad wins his office pool every year-just a hunch.


Most of us will agree filling brackets out is our duty and natural born right as American citizens. Still there’s an undefined science behind churning out a good bracket. And each of us who chooses to torment our psyche with the exercise of trying to see into the future does so differently. Many remain steadfastly traditional in simply choosing the higher seed in every matchup and sprinkling in an obvious upset here or there. Some do their homework by scouring ESPN’s Bracketology website before reading the blogs of an endless list of tournament gurus. Others still will go with what is perhaps the most effective method by simply waiting to hear who I favor and then choosing the complete opposite.

Filling out an effective tournament bracket is undoubtedly impossible and saying you’re an expert at choosing a good bracket is like saying you’re an awesome Snipe Hunter or that you really believe in the American political system. Proof that filling out a bracket requires no knowledge of the game can be found in my filling out my wife’s for her a few years ago only to finish dead last in an office pool filled with people who cherish cat calendars or a good Tazo Chai Tea Latte. Trust me, if anyone could have predicted George Mason making the Final Four, we should have known it would be Sue from Accounting.

NCAA Tournament aside, we’ve become a nation obsessed with picking. Picking everything from the best cars to the best clothes to the best time to have a yard sale during which to sell all the clothes we no longer need. We even have websites dedicated to helping us pick everything from the best washer and dryer to the best firm for hiring undocumented workers.

But who can really blame us after all? If choosing a quality dodge ball team during High School P.E. taught us anything at all it’s that the skill of picking wisely can mean life or death (And if you were the kid in black socks who always got picked last before having to go to the nurse because somebody permanently bruised a part of your body society would likely benefit most from your not using anyway, I apologize now).

Still the ugly fact remains that choosing a solid bracket requires no skill whatsoever. I once knew a guy who chose every single underdog on his bracket. Yes, his Final Four consisted of all four #16 seeds. Sounds like a knucklehead right? I lost money to that guy, so who’s the real knucklehead?

The point is, tournament brackets are a boondoggle in a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit so don’t waste hours sweating over yours. Don’t tell your children their futures ride on the Hampton Pirates upsetting Duke. Write some names down, throw your five bucks into the hat and hope for the best. And just remember, it doesn’t really matter who advances anyway, we’re all winning in Charlie Sheen’s book.

Who knew Cyndi Lauper was right: Money does change everything

First appeared on March 8th, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

There is a great Seinfeld episode where a gabbling George Costanza tries to leave on a high note after discovering it’s possible for an entertainer’s popularity to reach a zenith. Comedians learn quickly fishing for one more laugh is often a perilous business and, with all the talk of labor disputes and unhappy millionaires, the NFL may be quickly approaching this point as well.


Its true football has never been larger. But lost in the haze of ESPN’s incessant coverage of Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith climbing out of their chauffeured cars is the fact that, should a deal not be reached, the Earth will not stop spinning, the Chinese military will not join forces with Mexican drug lords to overthrow Obama and, you might want to sit down for this one, the O Network will still be available.

The only lurid part of this entire mess is that the future of America’s most popular sport, and that of the world if you consider average attendance numbers per event, remains about as clear as a long-winded Dennis Miller rant.

The fact the NFL has never been more popular only makes this train wreck all the more appetizing. League owners obviously have some level of intelligence, or fortunate genes, to have amassed enough coin to purchase their franchises. With this in mind, surely they, or someone they’ve hired to make decisions for them, realize the phrase “history repeats itself” isn’t just something invented by a crusty old social studies teacher trying to goad his students into listening.

They have to understand the Major League Baseball strike in 1995 resulted in attendance numbers dropping by an average of 6,000 occupied seats the following season. This is clearly an indicator fans don’t like it when millionaires bicker over money as if their sole fear in life is having to settle for traditional leather in their new Jaguar XJ as opposed to that stitched from Mongolian Yak hide.

Despite the $80 ticket price, billion dollar stadiums and television contracts that could put the entire nation of Albania through grad school, NFL fans don’t want to believe their sport is about money. Professional football is supposed to be about Mean Joe Green tossing a game jersey to some kid or Joe Theismann literally “breaking a leg”, not greedy owners or dissatisfied millionaires.

Somehow fans still think when you strip it all down these guys play for the love of the game. We honestly believe the same passion that sends a 40 year old to a high school open gym or a group of assembly line workers to form their own softball team is what drives a professional athlete. We’d like to think these millionaires have the same type of love that gives an 80 year old Betty White the courage to go over the middle in a 7 on 7 pick-up game with much younger actors.

The truth is it’s not about love. And no matter the level of coverage ESPN gives it, none of us will ever fully understand it. How could we? How could we wrap our brains around the dollar amounts being tossed about? Simply put we can’t relate.

Perhaps the timing is the most interesting part. After all, how odd is it that NFL players find themselves battling for control at the same time Union workers in Wisconsin and Indiana are being raked over the coals in the national media for exercising their constitutional rights? I suppose more sympathy exists for NFL players because ESPN leads SportsCenter with fantastic touchdown catches instead of Jane Doe teaching a first grader to read.