The (hopefully enduring) legacy of Butler

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*** NOTE: I don't care how late this is. I had some lingering thoughts on the NCAA title game and I wanted to express them. If you don't care anymore, I promise I won't be offended. ***

Much to my surprise, the 2010 NCAA Tournament kept up the thrilling pace right until the very end.

In a fitting climax to a fantastic two-and-a-half weeks, Duke held on for a 61-59 win and the championship when a buzzer-beating half-court shot by Butler's Gordon Hayward caromed off the backboard and then the front of the rim before tragically falling harmlessly to the floor.

This followed Hayward narrowly missing a Keith Smart-esque fade-to-the-baseline rainbow on the previous possession with five seconds to go and the Bulldogs trailing 60-59. With the camera right behind him, the shot looked dead-on, and visions of it going down as one of the greatest in college basketball history flashed through my mind, but it ended up being just a touch too strong.

Butler immediately fouled Brian Zoubek on the rebound, and with 3.6 seconds left and the Bulldogs out of timeouts, he made the first before intentionally missing the second, a strategy I disagreed with. Even though it meant Butler wouldn't be able to set up a play on the inbounds, and the running clock pretty much ensured frenetic disorganization, it also put Duke in position to lose if the Bulldogs hit a miracle 3.

Which they damn near did.

Immediately after Heyward's prayer rimmed out, I couldn't help but think of a bullshit charge that was called on him midway through the second half that erased two points, when it really should've been an and one. Could have been a totally different outcome had that sequence been called properly. Still, it could not take away from what was an absolutely riveting contest.

During the course of the game, I became so amped up and nervous as the massive tension continued to mount -- the differential between the two teams was never more than five points in the second half -- that I kept thinking, I cannot even imagine how badly I'd be freaking out if I was a Butler alum. I mean, seriously. You go to some tiny school in Indiana that no one's ever heard of, and then 10 or 15 years later they're playing for the NCAA title? I was completely losing it and I have absolutely no ties to the school; if I did, I'm pretty sure I would've had multiple heart attacks and/or aneurysms.

Still, in the end it was hard to be disappointed. It was such a great, exciting game and the finish was so close that I still had a goofy grin on my face long after it ended. I also thought about how Hayward came within a hair's breadth of immortality. I really think that if his half-courter had rattled in, it would have gone down as the greatest play in sports history. Think of all the legendary finishes in sports: Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard Round the World, the Lorenzo Charles dunk to win the '83 tournament, Bill Mazeroski's homer, The Play, Kirk Gibson's blast, Doug Flutie-to-Gerard Phelan, Jerry West's 60-footer in the '70 NBA Finals, Dwight Clark's catch, or any of Michael Jordan's buzzer beaters. None of them turned a certain loss into a title; most of them didn't even occur in a championship game (or a Game 7, as the case may be.) Charles' dunk and Maz's homer did, but both of those games were tied. Given the length of the shot and the magnitude of the upset, Hayward's heave would have topped them all.

I sincerely hope that he doesn't spend the rest of his life thinking about that. All of the kids from Butler should be exceptionally proud of what they did, and realize that the entire country (of non-Duke alums) was rooting for them. They might not have come away with the title, but I'll remember that team long after the championship is lost among the many in Duke's annals. So congratulations, Butler Bulldogs. That was a hell of a run.