SALT LAKE CITY — We love the madness of March because it’s our little way of sticking it to the man.
This time, the Butler did it.
As Bulldogs star Gordon Hayward stepped to the foul line and put the finishing touches on a 63-59 upset of Syracuse in the Sweet Sixteen, I believe the Butler cheerleaders spoke for everybody in America when they chanted: “Woof! Woof!”
Another No. 1 seed bit the dust in the NCAA basketball tournament, which teaches us: Life ain’t always fair and maybe the meek don’t actually inherit the Earth, but there’s nothing so sweet as the sound of an underdog woofing in victory.
“People might look at us and think maybe we’re not as athletic, maybe we’re not as talented or maybe we don’t have those guys who are going to go lottery in the NBA,” Hayward said Thursday.
Why is March madness the best show in sports? Here’s the deal for me. Perhaps you agree.
Unlike creepy Kentucky coach John Calipari, who gives any thinking fan the urge to take a shower, or the big-money arrogance of the Big East Conference, which acts as if it invented the game, sometimes the old-school values of studying hard in class and playing as a team on the court really are enough to win in NCAA hoops.
“I think you should cheer for Butler because we play the game the right way. We play it as hard as we can, we play it as tough as we can and we play it together,” said Hayward, who led the Bulldogs with 17 points.
The man doesn’t like it when things don’t go his way.
Or did you miss the agony smeared on the face of Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who looked as if somebody left his cake out in the rain after the Orange joined Kansas as the second top seed tossed in the Dumpster of this tourney. “I’m really at a loss,” he said.
Nothing against Boeheim, who can be one of the more engaging voices in the college game. But he should be Public Enemy No. 1 for every red-blooded American lover of the madness.
Boeheim is the loudest advocate of expanding the tourney field to a ridiculous 96 teams, as soon as next year. He whines: “We don’t have the best 65 teams in the tournament. We have automatic qualifiers, so there are teams in the tournament who aren’t the best teams in the country.”
To which we reply: Cry us an Orange river, Jimmy B.
Tourney expansion, however, is coming. Count on it. Why? The man, backed by the cash of television networks, wants the change in the name of greed.
Expanding the tournament, however, will only make it harder for Northern Iowa or Murray State or Butler to instigate the madness we love. If you make Cinderella dance more rounds, the likelihood increases of the glass slipper breaking under the strain.
Tell you what. If supersizing the Big Dance is inevitable, then let’s also adopt the idea of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who played college hoops at Harvard in the 1980s.
Duncan suggests that if a school fails to graduate 40 percent of its players over an extended period of time, a tourney bid should be denied.
Imagine that. Test scores counting in college hoops as much as 3-point shots. What a radically wonderful idea.
If you keep score by the recent graduation rates, Butler would rout Kentucky 90-31.
“The foundation piece of our program that was here long before I got (to Butler) was: We want guys that compete, not only on the court but in the classroom,” Bulldogs coach Brad Stevens said.
Peering up from his chair in the Butler locker room, Hayward looked at me as if I were crazy when this question was posed: Is having a “Kansas” or “Kentucky” or the name of any other big-money, tradition-rich basketball factory stitched across the front of a jersey automatically worth five points in the NCAA tourney?
“No, not for us,” Hayward insisted. “We just go out there and play like it was any other team.”
When our tourney brackets get shredded, it might cost us a few bucks in the office pool. But, deep down, we treasure the upsets.
What’s the best use of a shredded bracket? Toss it like confetti in celebration of sticking it to the man.
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com
