HOUSTON — March Madness has become April anxiety at the Final Four, awaiting today’s semifinals with powerhouse matchups involving Kansas . . . no, wait . . . and Ohio State . . . oops. Duke? Done. Pittsburgh? Long gone.
Seemingly out of nowhere, No. 11 seed Virginia Commonwealth (28-11) is here. Quick, name its conference.
So is No. 8 Butler, making a surprise return when most thought the Bulldogs (27-9) would go back to just being a nice little program known mostly for its Hinkle Fieldhouse serving as the movie backdrop for “Hoosiers.”
Two midmajors in the Final Four? What in Naismith’s name is going on here?
And to think that Butler (Gordon Hayward) and VCU (Larry Sanders) began this season wondering how they could replace their go-to stars, who left early for the NBA.
“I think that’s a remarkable story,” Butler coach Brad Stevens said Friday during interviews. “You lost guys to the first round of the NBA draft at non-BCS schools, and you’re both in the Final Four. . . . I never thought we’d be sitting here.”
Butler and VCU make up half of what is possibly the craziest Final Four in history, at least the most unlikely. Not only are all the No. 1 seeds missing, the No. 2 seeds didn’t make it to Reliant Stadium either. That had never happened since 1979, when seeding was first used to fill the NCAA Tournament.
VCU is only the third No. 11 seed to reach college basketball’s biggest stage, joining Louisiana State in 1986 and George Mason in 2006. Tonight, VCU and Butler will be the first midmajors matched in a national semifinal in decades, many decades.
An anomaly? Or does this signal a change in the landscape of college basketball?
“I think the change had been signaled awhile ago,” VCU coach Shaka Smart said. “I think with the early entrance (of power-conference players) to the NBA, and the fact that many dominant teams at the BCS level have quite a few younger players, I think you have seen this change coming.
“But certainly, with two teams in the Final Four from BCS leagues, I think that definitely indicates the trend is growing.”
The on-court accomplishments of VCU and Butler suggest, if not prove, that this was not a fluke. There’s no denying VCU eked into the 68-team bracket because the Rams had to begin in Dayton as one of eight teams banished to the “first round.” VCU easily outran Southern Cal there, and arrived here having knocked off representatives of the Pac-10, Big East, Big Ten, Atlantic Coast and Big 12 conferences. Four of those five victories were by double-figure margins, including a stunning 71-61 ouster of Kansas, the Southwest Regional’s top seed.
“Once you’re on the court, I don’t think what conference you’re from has anything to do with it,” VCU senior guard Joey Rodriguez said. “It’s who has the best team, who plays the best.”
Butler’s route has been anything but smooth. It took a putback layup by senior forward Matt Howard at the buzzer against Old Dominion for the Bulldogs to get past the second round. Then a free throw by Howard was the difference in a 71-70 win over Southeast Regional top seed Pittsburgh, and last Saturday the Bulldogs needed to overcome an 11-point deficit in the second half of the regional final against Florida to extend the game to overtime.
Like any coach, Stevens can get upset in practice. But Butler players say they never have seen Stevens get rattled.
“That’s really helpful to our team,” Howard said Friday of his coach’s composure. “It doesn’t matter what kind of stretch your team’s going through, maybe the other team’s making a run, you look over and he’s moved on to the next play. I don’t think I’ve ever once seen any type of look of panic or (heard) any ‘we’re in trouble’ type of talk from him.”
How do VCU and Butler do it? It helps to have two of the best young coaches in the business, a supportive school administration — “People are the greatest resource (not facilities),” Stevens has said — and a proximity to a bountiful recruiting area.
And, as VCU’s Smart said, teams can’t just play “willy-nilly basketball.”
“Butler has the ‘Butler way.’ They have their (defensive-based) way of doing things,” Smart said. “It works. It’s tested. It’s proven. They’re not going to stray away from that. We have ours.”
Rodriguez recalled Friday watching Butler’s run to the 2010 Final Four, a journey that reached the final shot in the national championship game against Duke, when Hayward’s mid-court heave rimmed out.
Tonight, the Rams and Bulldogs are playing for a spot in Monday night’s grand finale against one of the sport’s blue bloods, Kentucky or Connecticut. No matter what happens this evening, for the second year in a row a midmajor will be playing for it all.
“I was hoping last year that Butler would win the national championship,” Rodriguez said. “We were all in our rooms watching the games and cheering for them.
“It gave a lot of midmajors belief that they could get to the Final Four and make some noise. It is kind of surreal we are playing them for a chance to play in the national championship.”
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
