An Open Letter to the Butler Bandwagon

Dear Butler bandwagon,

You have been officially served with a cease and desist. Hold your swooning and save the remarks about this team being a rag tag group of misfits and farmboys. And for Jimmy Chitwood’s sake please don’t make one more reference to Hoosiers.

One ESPN headline Sunday read: “The Ultimate David vs. Goliath.”

Please.

Calling this Butler team David is not only inaccurate but horribly patronizing. The next comment about “baby faced” Butler coach Brad Stevens looking like a manager will be one too many. Please, sports nation, stop reading more into this than it truly is.

Don’t get me wrong, I think upsets are one of the most exciting events in sports. But I also count myself as one of those who are fed up with America’s obsession with putting Butler in a sort of feel-good box that, frankly, is more condescending than anything.

Forget the intangible side of the story, lets look at it objectively.

First off, these players weren’t picked up off the scrap heap. These aren’t the “Little Timmy” players that the majority of the country would like them to be. I get it, we as sports fans want to believe that anything is possible, that even the less fortunate can arise to such a great stage. But these are no scrubs.

Forward Matt Howard, who delighted America with his mustache on Saturday night, isn’t a student Stevens ran into on some farm in Indiana. He turned down offers from schools like West Virginia and Xavier to play at Butler. Avery Jukes? Transferred from Alabama, a program coming off five straight NCAA Tournament appearances at the time. Gordon Hayward and Ronald Nored may have been recruited exclusively by midmajors, but watch a Butler game and tell me they couldn’t be playing in the ACC or Big Ten right now.

These weren’t five inferior athletes nervously launching threes from behind arc Sunday night. Hayward took the athletic, versatile Michigan State defense off the dribble throughout the game. Howard bodied up Draymond Green like so many Illini fans wish Mikes Tisdale and Davis would. And the heady Ronald Nored provided the kind of smothering defense Tom Izzo covets.

Mike Krzyzewski was right in telling the media Sunday morning that he doesn’t view Butler in the cutesy terms that they’ve been portrayed in. Why? Because he knows that this is no Cinderella story. This is a team that has gone through one of the most difficult and trying paths to get to Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium. And guess what: They earned it.

First they went up against an explosive 12 seed in UTEP who was led by the embattled yet bruising center Derrick Caracter. Next they took down 31-win Murray State. Then Syracuse and Big East Player of the Year Wesley Johnson. Then Kansas State. Even if you disregard their three tournament wins over Top 15 teams in the AP poll, they still can claim wins over Ohio State and Xavier in the regular season.

Just look at the seeding. Their five seed was even considered worse than they should have gotten by some who pointed to their No. 11 ranking heading into the tournament. That’s the beauty of the tournament committee: they analyze. Tough many Illini fans would like to believe that the selection committee throws darts at a board, it truly is a comprehensive process. And going by these seeds, they deemed Butler to be equally likely as the “Goliath” of Sunday’s game, Michigan State, Atlantic 10 power Temple, and a big, nasty Texas A&M team that supposedly chews up and spits out little teams. Catch my drift?

For further proof, look no further than the No. 6 seeded Tennesee Volunteers. This was a squad that was the one and only group that could claim wins over both Kansas and Kentucky. They lost star Tyler Smith but kept on knocking teams off. Love them or hate him, Bruce Pearl did a fine job holding that group together. Even with all of this in mind, the committee determined that Butler had a better body of work. Hear that? Butler is a better team. Not a better story, a better team.

Finally, calling Duke “Goliath” shows that you haven’t seen this team play. Forget Laettner, Hurley, and Hill. This group of Blue Devils has nothing to do with the Duke greats of the past. This is a program that has faced early round exits at the hand of basketball powerhouses like Virginia Commonwealth, pre-Huggins West Virginia, and LSU while playing as the 1 seed. The last time Duke reached the Final Four many of these players weren’t even in high school.

Plus, let’s be honest. Duke won the outright ACC title and they have been in the figurative pent house of the polls all season long. But this is no Goliath. Goliath is the 2004 UConn roster that had six quality NBA players who looked and played like they were already in the league. Goliath is the 1983 Houston Cougars, a bunch famously nicknamed Phi Slama Jama for their high-flying antics led by future Hall of Famers Hakim Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. Somehow John Scheyer, Kyle Singler, and Nolan Smith just don’t stack up with these true Goliaths.

So please, cease and desist Butler bandwagon. Cheer on the Bulldogs Monday night, but please hold the condescension. Brad Stevens’s mom will get mad at you.