I have decided to start a blog. The only regret I have about starting this blog is that I wish I had done it earlier (when college hoops were in full-swing). I have to blame my over-analyzing, unnecessarily-stressing self for this regret, because each time I had a great entry ready to go, I would shut down the browser without saving my work thinking, “It’s just not good enough.” Finally, after wrestling my inner perfectionist, I decided to stop worrying about the imperfections of my entries. I want to write in this blog for two reasons: 1) I love to write, and 2) I want to improve my writing. I see this blog as a tool to improve my writing and to throw out my opinions with often-sarcastic commentary. So if I want to improve, who cares if many entries are far from perfect, lacking in wit, or contain terribly wrong statistics? I shouldn’t. I want to get better. So in my best attempt to throw my carefree, inhibition-less foot forward, I am off and rolling.
I am fairly certain it is no foreign matter to anyone who knows me that I simply have one true love above all other things in my life—basketball. (I should really say that it is not foreign to anyone who actually even meets me, because there’s a very good chance I am talking about b-ball within the first 10 minutes of any meet-and-greet.) I have a feeling a lot of my entries will be devoted to this time-consuming lover of mine; but I can’t say this blog will be exclusively sports, because when golf is the only sport out there to discuss, I likely won’t have anything to say. (I did play golf in high school, and in one tournament, I shot a 148. And yes, please feel free to judge me for that, because I do on a regular basis.) I can’t claim to be an expert about sports—truly, I am far from it—but I do pride myself on knowing quite a bit about basketball. No, I can’t play it, and I would, in fact, be embarrassed to even hold a basketball. But I am fortunate to have two good eyes, and I can watch it and spectate like a pro. Just to nicely wrap up my feelings for basketball, I, like any player of the sport, am always trying to get better on how I understand and analyze the players, the plays, the shots, the calls, and the list goes on. So please understand this! Don’t lambaste me when I say something stupid (I undoubtedly will) and shake your head thinking, “What a dumb, unfortunate girl.” Trust me, I have thought the same thing about myself on far too many occasions—far more times than you will be able to think it yourself.
So now that we have that out of the way, I just have to break down last night’s NCAA title game. Frankly, I don’t have a lot of interest in actually talking about the game. Let’s all face it: no matter how much we all love college basketball, this game can’t even be chalked up to either good or enjoyable. Butler couldn’t make shots in the paint. UConn was having just as much trouble getting shots past Butler’s defense in the first half. There were very few times anyone got to shout “AND-1, BABY!” Essentially, UConn did fewer things wrong than Butler did, making them the 2011 title-holder. So it’s not the game itself I want to talk about—I just want to talk about Butler.
It’s been said a million times in the media before now, but this match-up warrants another time asking, who in the world predicted this pairing?! Experts from multiple outlets had Butler bowing out first round to one of the nation’s leading rebounding teams, Old Dominion. There was no way that Matt Howard or Andrew Smith could be the necessary rebounding big guys needed to defeat ODU and muscle Butler past the first round this year. But they did… on a clutch buzzer-beating shot by none other than Matt Howard himself. Ah, so lucky. They were then a sure bet to be out next round, playing a highly favored Pittsburgh team. But they got that one done, too, in a game that every person was still reading blogs about and watching highlights of at work the entire following week. Butler continued their roll through Wisconsin, Florida (a game I surely thought would go to the Gators with their outstanding senior line-up this season and Coach Billy Donovan at the wheel), and past VCU for a spot in the NCAA National Championship game for the second year in a row. With a tournament showing like that, I might argue that anyone who has something negative to say about the Bulldogs, even after their disappointing 18.8% shooting performance in last night’s game, doesn’t have a soul. No, I cannot sit here at my computer and say that Butler had an even remotely good performance in the title game last night. To perform like that during arguably the most important game of your college basketball career has to be truly disheartening. But Butler is America’s team. When I think about Butler, I always thought about Brad Stevens and Gordon Hayward. How can you not, with Stevens taking his Butler team to consecutive national title games and with Gordon Hayward shooting a half-court shot in last year’s title game that almost, almost won the game for the Bulldogs at the buzzer? Two images truly indicative of how crazy and mad college basketball really is.
But this season, my “Butler image” has changed. When I think about Butler, I now, and will until someone just as tenacious and delightful to watch comes along, associate them with Matt Howard. To me, so much of this NCAA tournament was about his love for the game and his evident attempt to selflessly help Butler win. The guy is not a stat-stuffer. (I don’t think stat stuffing is a bad thing. Plenty of guys are supremely talented athletes who have an innate ability to play every aspect of the game. But we all know there are some stat-stuffers who selfishly do it for the wrong reasons. Think three letters: N, B, and A.) Matt Howard had some great stats and some clutch moves throughout this tournament, but what shines through to me the most is his desire to win as a team. I can’t quote him, because I will most certainly misfire here, but in an interview before Butler’s match-up with Florida, Howard said something to the tune of “you want the last game that you ever play to be a win.” Charlie Sheen, take note. This is the truest form of a winning attitude that an athlete can express through words. I always remember past NCAA tournaments—where I was, whom I watched the games with, what players stood out the most during the important games. This NCAA tournament won’t be plagued with Butler’s inability to shoot in the final game or my pondering during the game if the German UConn player, Niels Giffey, was a walk-on or not. (I obviously now know that he was not.) No, this tournament I will remember Matt Howard’s love of the game, which will then take me back to regular season when he stood on the court with a bloody face for such a long time that one might have thought he was trying to let photographers get his picture, but really actually just didn't want to leave the game… which will then take me back to his ability to put up a free-throw under major pressure to snag the win against Pitt... which will then take me back to... the list goes on.
Matt Howard will likely go un-drafted come time to pull out the big guns for the NBA, but what he and the Butler Bulldogs did in this tournament alone will undoubtedly resonate. In the press conference after Monday’s game, Brad Stevens was asked what Matt Howard as a player meant to him and the team: “That kid never took one day off…You know he’s the Academic All-American of the Year for a reason: because he works harder than everybody else…I told him in the locker room, ‘I don’t have time to talk about all that you mean to our school.’” I can only add one thing to Stevens’ comments: I don’t have time to talk about all that Matt Howard and Butler mean to the brilliance and heart of college basketball.
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