[Originally posted around noon Monday; bumped to top. -ed.]
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have any serious emotional investment in Butler. I don’t claim any “ownership” of this team or its tournament run. Like the sidebar at right says, I’m simply on the Butler bandwagon. When I went out to the grocery store after Saturday’s game, wearing my Butler shirt, I was fully prepared to say “nope, I’m just a bandwagon fan” if anyone asked me whether I had gone to Butler or somesuch. (No one did, though a deaf guy came up and gesticulated excitedly about Butler’s awesomeness.)
This isn’t like my rooting interest in Gonzaga, about which I’ll doth protest endlessly, explaining how I became a fan before there was a bandwagon, I follow the Zags through good and bad, blah blah blah. I’m rooting for Butler because they’re the last mid-major standing in this tournament, not because of any long-term passionate fandom. If Murray State had beaten the Bulldogs in the second round and then proceeded to knock off Syracuse, Kansas State and Michigan State, I’d be a big Racers fan right now.
Having said that, it is kind of nice that Butler, out of all the non-Gonzaga options, happens to be the team carrying Hoops Nation‘s banner into Sports Bubble Stadium tonight. Having gone to a game at Hinkle Fieldhouse three years ago, and having watched from the nosebleed seats in St. Louis later that year as the same Bulldogs team challenged eventual champion Florida, but were stymied by loose and sometimes questionable refereeing (and, y’know, Florida being really good), I do feel a certain special affinity for the Dawgs. Yeah, that was the era of A.J. Graves and Todd Lickliter, but it’s the same Butler Way, and in some ways, this run feels like the completion of unfinished business from that near-miss against the Gators in ’07.
(Side note about that trip to the St. Louis Regional. I bought a Butler t-shirt that day, at an NCAA-sanctioned merchandise tent across the street from the Edward Jones Dome. I think it cost somewhere north of $20. It was an impulse buy, and, I thought at the time — even as I was getting out my wallet — probably an objectively foolish one. After all, when would I ever want to wear a Butler shirt again? … Little did I know. That shirt has come in very handy the last couple of rounds! And, wearing a Butler shirt that says 2007, I don’t have to feel like quite as much of a dirty rotten bandwagoner. In retrospect, it was totally worth the cost. 🙂
Contrast my feelings about Butler’s run to those regarding George Mason’s run to the Final Four in 2006. That year, my “Other 24” emotional investment, such as it was — outside of Gonzaga, of course — was in the Missouri Valley Conference, whose conference tournament I’d attended. I was thrilled to see Bradley and Wichita State make the Sweet Sixteen, and I was most assuredly rooting for the Shockers when they played Mason in that round (in a BracketBusters rematch).
I certainly jumped aboard the Mason bandwagon after they beat Wichita, even though it meant rooting against UConn in the Elite Eight. But if I’m being honest, I never really felt particularly connected to, or passionate about, that GMU team. I hadn’t really followed the CAA (which had a modest rivalry with the MVC, as the two ascendant mid-major leagues that year) and was barely paying attention to George Mason until Groingate made the Patriots into one of the most intriguing Selection Sunday debates in memory. I was very happy to see them reach the Final Four, but in the absence of any pre-existing emotional investment, it was more a generic good-for-them happiness than a deeply felt joy.
But this Butler run feels different. As I said, I don’t claim any serious emotional investment, but I at least feel a tiny little connection because of those 2007 events, my former residence in Indiana, and so forth. And then of course there’s the whole Kyle Whelliston / Sports Bubble Stadium / #fate #fate #fate angle. I’m not just happy, I’m thrilled — for Butler, for its fans, for Kyle, for everyone involved.
There’s also the fact that I have a specific personal memory to go with it, one that I’ll cherish forever, namely, watching Butler beat Syracuse a week ago Thursday while in the tub with Loyette, giving her a bath. I had the game on MMOD on my laptop, safely and dryly ensconced on the sink above, and as Butler hit big shots and made big stops to seal the deal against the ‘Cuse, I cheered and splashed excitedly, and Loyette (who has definitely learned how to say “GO BUTLER!” over the last couple of weeks, and who of course loves yelling, screaming, cheering and splashing) happily splashed along with Daddy. If the individual memorableness of a sporting event is directly tied to the uniqueness of the setting in which one views the event, and I think it is, Butler over Syracuse will always be the signature moment of the 2010 NCAA Tournament for me.
Anyway, if Duke wins tonight, it will be an enormous letdown after one of the greatest NCAA Tournaments of all time (and maybe the last as we know it). By contrast, if Butler wins, I’m pretty sure it’ll be one of the greatest March Madness moments I’ve ever witnessed. Even so, I’m not going to repeat my assertion that fate demands a Bulldog victory. I played that card once, and it worked, and I’m not going to push my luck. I will say this, though: I BELIEVE.
GO BUTLER!!! BEAT DUKE!!!