It’s going to be hard for me to get through this without a bias. Impossible, actually. I despise Duke and everything that the Blue Devils basketball team stands for. Stuck-up, elitist, and everything else that is bad about a sports team. So yes, I am pissed they won the national championship, 61-59 over Butler. They did not deserve it.
Butler. Oh Butler. The Cinderella story. The Hoosiers sequel. The hometown team making the national championship game. They deserved this. They played with Duke, matched them through 40 well-fought minutes, even when the refs were clearly favoring the ACC champs. (Seriously, in 10-15 years when this game is on ESPN Classic, people will watch and remember how much the referees favored Duke. It was disgusting. Especially the Brian Zoubek-Matt Howard match up down low. )
The game was close throughout, with no team taking a lead bigger than 6 points (7-1 Duke, big whoop) and a crap load of lead changes throughout. Butler dominated the boards in the first half, but a couple of dubious calls on Howard took the big man out, and in his absence Duke started dominating the post. Still, the score was 33-32 Duke at halftime, setting up a tense second half. Both teams fought, and neither pulled away at any point: for the duration of the second half, Duke led by either 4 or 2, setting up the scene for a wild final 4 minutes. Alas, Duke’s size inside was just too much for the Bulldogs, who at times had the 6’9” Gordon Hayward covering the 7’1” Zoubek (who quickly made his way into my hate-list. Plus, he really looks like Brad Miller. That bugs me). Butler had 2 chances to win the game in the last 15 seconds, with Gordon Hayward taking a fade-away jumper (that would have put Butler up 61-60 with 4 seconds left) that was a little too long, and then a half court prayer that the Basketball Gods did not answer.
Instead, we watch a Duke team that benefited from the easiest bracket in the tournament celebrate — the epitome of what I hate about college basketball. Kyle Singler, a player who I hate more than anyone on Duke except for the oh-so-hateable Jon Scheyer, played great for the Blue Devils, with some clutch blocks and shots, finishing with 19 points.
Congratulations to Duke, I suppose: you have won on a night where only the worst kinds of fans (and Duke alumni, who are excused) were cheering for you. How I wish Gordon Hayward’s half-court buzzer beater had gone in (picture above). Alas, sports aren’t fair.
Fuck Duke.
(Image via)
You might need your stomach pumped after eating all of those sour grapes.
A team that was ranked in the top ten in preseason, undefeated in its conference, and a conference champ =/= a Cinderella story. Sorry, buddy, take your tears elsewhere. Butler is a fantastic team, didn’t deserve anymore than they earned.
And I guess you conveniently missed all those blatant Butler shooting fouls that went uncalled. Oh, right, the perpetual whine of Duke haters is that Duke gets all the calls. That hasn’t been the case in the tournament and wasn’t the case in this game.
I would have been pulling for Butler if they’d been playing someone other than my alma mater, but suck it up. Seriously.
The sad thing? Try to explain how the bracket and refs were designed for Duke’s road to the championship to a Dukie. I swear, I’d rather speak with a tea-bagger about healthcare…
I try not to associate with Dukies but I believe it. How did the weakest #1 seed get the easiest bracket???
@Karen Let’s take your statement “That hasn’t been the case in the tournament and wasn’t the case in this game.”. I have two words for you: Baylor. Game. Did you even watch? There was a turning point, around 5 minutes left, where Duke started getting EVERY SINGLE CALL. Yes, they probably would have won anyway, but Christ, did the refs have to make it that obvious?
I understand you went to Duke, and therefore have an alleigance to it. I appreciate that. But don’t blind yourself to the truth: the refs clearly favored Duke at key times this tournament (both that Baylor game and last night) and as a result they were rewarded. Also, Butler isn’t a Cinderella team? I don’t care if they were ranked #1 in the nation at the start of the season, their student body is 4,500, their costs for their ENTIRE team were lower than the costs of ONE Duke player (there was some math thrown around, I’ll find it if you care). Just because they are smart recruiters and have a great coach doesn’t mean they didn’t outplay everyone’s expectations. You say Butler got what they earned, this is true. They earned it in ways Duke couldn’t even dream of.
Want some cheese with that whine?
It’s funny to hear so much about Zoubek these days. He grew up in the town right next to mine in South Jersey (Haddonfield, the Duke University to my town’s NIT first-round loser… also the inspiration for the setting of the Halloween films). I never met him, but I’m glad he’s carried the Haddonfield “Iceland-in-D2″ persona to the national stage. Maybe he’ll make a good Laker/Celtic someday so he can continue to be nationally disliked.
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