Rare defensive letdown, Butler’s injury doom West Virginia in 78-57 loss to Duke at Final Four

West Virginia bounced from Final Four by Duke

INDIANAPOLIS — As Da’Sean Butler writhed on the floor in pain, unable to straighten his left leg, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins parted the players surrounding his star and leaned down.

Nose-to-nose with Butler, Huggins cradled the senior forward’s head and began stroking his face, trying to offer words of encouragement.

It helped on a bad night, even if just a little.

West Virginia’s best season in 51 years came to an inglorious end with a rare letdown on defense and an injury to its best player, leading to a 78-57 loss to Duke in Saturday night’s national semifinals.

Butler, West Virginia’s leading scorer, was injured with 8:59 left in the game when he drew a foul after driving into Duke’s Brian Zoubek under the basket. He collapsed to the floor and winced as a trainer tried to straighten his leg as thousands of West Virginia fans sat in stunned silence.

After Huggins came over, Butler pounded his fist on the court, then was helped up by a teammate and a trainer, unable to put any weight on his leg as it dragged behind him. He was lifted onto a nearby golf cart and rode to locker room facing backward, stone-faced toward the scoreboard as West Virginia’s fans chanted “Da’Sean! Da’Sean!”

This isn’t how the Mountaineers or their fervent fans expected this glorious season to end.

With a statewide following that stretched from the bottom of its famous coal mines all the way to Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium, West Virginia had put together its best season since Jerry West led the Mountaineers to the 1959 national title game.

Huggins, the hometown hero, had molded the Mountaineers in his gritty image, getting them to do the blue-collar things that weren’t always pretty.

West Virginians loved Huggins and his team for it, following them fervently, the coal miners listening to the radio broadcasts bouncing off the damp walls hundreds of feet below the surface.

But the Mountaineers never really stood much of a chance against the balanced Blue Devils, allowing Duke to get the rim early and unable to get to its shooters all night.

West Virginia allowed Jon Scheyer and Nolan Smith to hit 9 of 18 3-pointers and Duke hit 13 overall on the way to shooting 52 percent. By the time Butler went down, the Mountaineers were already down and close to out.

His injury just made it harder to take.