With Butler in semis, Indy again is the site of an underdog tale
The movie “Hoosiers” might as well be part of the curriculum at Butler University. The Bulldogs’ home, Hinkle Fieldhouse, famously served as the site of the legendary 1954 Indiana high school state championship win — by tiny Milan High over powerhouse Muncie Central — and the site of the 1986 film’s famous re-enactment of the victory.
Like it or not, it is embraced as part of Bulldogs coach Brad Stevens’ summer basketball camp.
“For some reason, every week — we go four weeks straight — four days, every day for every week, kids want to watch ‘Hoosiers,'” Butler sophomore guard Ronald Nored told reporters. “It’s the most annoying thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
Yet that’s not how the Bulldogs, who reached the NCAA Final Four for the first time in school history, will approach being the college version of Milan when they play just seven miles away at Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday.
“We’re not here to just go back to Indy and go to the Final Four and, you know, celebrate that way,” Nored said. “We want to win the whole thing. But this is probably the coolest thing that’s ever happened in my life.”
For it to get even cooler, the Horizon League champions will have to overcome Tom Izzo, who is back in the national semifinals for the sixth time since 1999 — the most in the NCAA — with a Michigan State squad that knows exactly what it is like to be the home team. The Spartans were the inspirational favorite last year in Detroit. At Ford Field, Michigan State beat Connecticut in the Final Four before losing in the championship to North Carolina.
“So now we’ve got a page to take out of [the Tar Heels’] book,” Izzo said. “That’s what experience does for you.”
While both the Spartans and the Bulldogs head to Indianapolis as surprising No. 5 seeds, Duke will be the only No. 1 in attendance. It is either a testament to how the Blue Devils have played late in the season — as posited by NCAA Selection Committee chairman Dan Guerrero — or simply that the South Region was by far the weakest of the four in the tournament. Either way, the television ratings should get a boost.
In its first Final Four since 2004, Duke can prove once and for all it belongs if it can topple West Virginia, which thought it deserved a No. 1 seed after winning the Big East Tournament. Instead the Mountaineers had to go through NBA prospect-loaded Kentucky as a No. 2 seed in the East Region.
“I told all the guys I recruited, we want to win a national championship,” said Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins, who has his alma mater in the Final Four for the first time since 1959. “… If I don’t believe it, how are they supposed to believe it? We’re not a real explosive offensive team. So we’re going to play everything close. But I think in some ways that’s helped us because we’re so used to being in close games.”
