Bulldogs survive shooting night when ‘we can’t throw it in ocean and we’re standing on beach’

Butler’s ferocious defense saves atrocious offense

INDIANAPOLIS — If you have the box score from this one, put it somewhere for safekeeping. It might be the first game in the history of college basketball where the winning team tries to destroy the evidence.

Butler 52, Michigan State 50 was definitely one for the ages — like back when the ball had laces, players shot with two hands and a cage fenced in the court. The defense on both sides was as ferocious as their offenses were atrocious.

The Bulldogs will try to complete one of the most improbable journeys ever by playing the Duke for a national championship Monday night. But if coach Brad Stevens is as smart as he’s made out to be, his preparations won’t include making his players watch videotape of Saturday’s semifinal. They might all call in sick.

Butler scored only one basket in the final 12 minutes, but it encapsulated the kind of struggle both teams endured the entire night.

Leading 48-46 with 1:41 left to play, Bulldog guard Ronald Nored fired a pass to Gordon Hayward in the left corner. Hayward missed the 3-point attempt — naturally, considering Butler shot 24 percent from distance, 24 percent in the second half and only 31 percent for the game. But the ball bounced high off the rim and soaring over the top of the scrum chasing it came teammate Shawn Vanzant.

Somehow, Vanzant got control and rifled it back to Hayward underneath the basket. He didn’t miss the layup.

“It did seem like it was a long time,” Hayward said. “But for us, as long as we guard, we feel like we can be in games. That’s what we’ve tried to do all year. We’ve gone through stretches like that before, where it seems like we can’t throw it in the ocean and we’re standing on the beach.”

The saving grace was that the Bulldogs didn’t panic.

“Like Gordon said, we’ve been through stretches like that all year,” Nored confirmed. “It’s about overcoming those stretches. If we didn’t score again and they didn’t score again, we won the game. So it’s just about getting stops. I think we did that for the most part.”

Of course, it’s not like they didn’t get plenty of help from Michigan State. The Spartans shot a much more respectable 43 percent from the floor, but only 56 percent from the line. They had zero points off fast breaks, but twice as many turnovers — 16 to Butler’s eight. Michigan State lived up to its billing as the best rebounding team in the land; but the Spartans’ 36-32 edge yielded only an 11-10 advantage in second-chance points, not quite enough to close the gap.

Afterward, Michigan State coach Tom Izzo was seething over a few foul calls and a dispute with the referees over his attempt to call a time-out on the Spartans’ final possession, which ultimately began with 5.5 seconds remaining.

“I was bothered by a couple things, that’s all. You know what, I told you how I felt. Not that it wouldn’t be worth 10 grand, because it would be,” he said, referring to getting fined for criticizing the officials, “if I really wanted to say something.

“But, you know what,” he added a moment later, “they deserved to win. They earned the right to win. They played kind of our game, meaning the physical nature game. I don’t think if you call them a mid-major, which I don’t, because they were a top-10 team all year. You got to give them a lot of credit because they played smash-mouth basketball. Personally, I’m a fan of theirs in that respect.”

Make room, Tom, since the bandwagon will be straining under the weight of all the fans jumping on as the Bulldogs continue speeding toward a title. Back at Hinkle Fieldhouse, that bandbox of a gym on a campus of 4,200 students just a 10-minute ride down the road, Butler students who couldn’t get tickets to the game watched on TV. They didn’t care how the Bulldogs won, only that they did.

At the final whistle, the place went up for grabs. When Stevens was asked how he planned to keep his team grounded ahead of their date with destiny Monday night, he smiled.

“Probably stay away from campus,” Stevens said.

Next, he might want to consider taking the stools out of the locker room. Given the Bulldogs’ aim at the moment, most of them would be lucky to land on a seat.

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org