I suspected Butler was screwed when I learned that Ted Valentine was one of the referees. He was one of the officials who participated in the jobbing of IU in the ’92 semi-final game against Duke. Aside from Matt Howard’s foul trouble, however, I didn’t feel violated by the officiating like I did after the IU game. Seems like by the end of the game, things were being called (or, more accurately, not called) pretty evenly.
The final score was Duke 61, Butler 59. The end was shaping up a lot like Hoosiers. Small (but very talented) Butler was playing Goliath. With 13 seconds to go, they were down by 2. They gave the ball to Bobby Plump Jimmy Chitwood Gordon Hayward who drove to the base line and put up a shot . . . that didn’t go. The game wasn’t done, however. With 3 seconds to go. Duke made the first free throw and intentionally missed the second. Hayward got the rebound, drove to half court, and heaved a shot from half court has time expired. Had it gone, that shot would have been replayed for decades and decades to come. It was so, very, very close. But, it missed. And, as a friend of mine put it, the clanging of the ball off the rim was like the sound of a sucker punch to the soul.
What a game, and what a season for Butler. I can’t pretend I was anything but a bandwagon Bulldog supporter. But I was awfully proud of how they played last night. Good season Bulldogs.
Everyone in the building knew the refs blew that blocking call in the second half. That took two points from Butler, plus a foul shot. Refs tend to over-respect Duke’s ability to take a charge. In this case, the Duke player slid under Hayward and leaned to his right to make contact. Refs need to make that call, but don’t seem to be able to do it against Duke.
Otherwise, pretty clean game.
Aside from the Haywood “charge”, the game was physical and the refereeing was consistent enough.
I couldn’t believe the way Matt Howard committed his 4th foul. He might as well have used a hatchet.
With 13 seconds to go and the score 60-59, I got excited that Butler might hit a three to parallel earlier scores. Milan won 42-40 in real life and 52-50 in the movie; Butler won 62-60 on Saturday.
It’s Hayward…sorry!
I listed to Dakich interview Mitch Daniels on Friday PM about the weekend’s games on 1070. It doesn’t surprise me anymore that almost everybody in Indianpolis just sucks-up to Daniels.
I actually think it would have been a classy thing for Daniels to have worked out a promotion with a radio station where his promotional tickets for this weekend’s games were raffled off to highest bidder with the proceeds to go to something like juvenile diabetes or american cancer society fund.