COLUMN: Butler’s run gives hope
Another season in the books, another 345 dreams that didn’t come true, and another year that the little guys came up short.
I know it probably seems brutally redundant at this point for me to still be talking about the hopes and dreams of the mid-majors, but it is important to know that all of the emotion poured into hoping to see the other mid-majors of the world like Butler succeed is based around the hope that Utah State will be the team in that position.
Would I be content with back-to-back losses in the national championship game? Probably. Would I be forever haunted by the idea of “what if?” Of course.
Regardless of that though, the ride to get to even one Final Four or championship game would be one hell of a rollercoaster, and it’s a ride I would get on every time.
Yes, Butler fans had their dreams shattered on the final day of the season once again, but don’t think for a second that they won’t remember these past two years for the rest of their lives and tell stories about the players whose names will undoubtedly go down as legends. Don’t think that the memories for those fans won’t live on forever and don’t think that the students who were there through the thick and thin of the past two seasons won’t be forever bragging that Butler’s best year (I assume) came while they were packing student sections.
It’s almost unfair to future Butler players because chances are Bulldog fans will forever compare them to the likes of Shelvin Mack, Matt Howard and Gordon Hayward, no matter how accomplished of a career they put forth shy of actually winning the title game. Not to make Butler fans sound fickle or anything, but it seems to be a universal idea carried throughout humanity that “things just aren’t as good as they used to be.”
Regardless, it’s been an amazing past two years for Butler, and even though I shouldn’t be writing them off for next year just yet, losing Howard and Mack alone should be too much to put together another Final Four run. Then again, who knows? Maybe head coach Brad Stevens just instills that sense of mental toughness that gets teams through March, which his teams have demonstrated each of the past two years?
Either way, the right group of players came together for Butler and made all the right plays at all the right times to put together two incredible back-to-back seasons. And for everyone scoring at home, Butler has the best average finish of any team in the country over the past two years with two straight second-place finishes.
Utah State is currently on that same fringe of big time success that Butler was on just three or four years ago. Not to say back-to-back Final Fours will happen for USU anytime soon, but carving out their own unique and exciting story of NCAA Tournament success doesn’t seem too far off for the Aggies.
Two years ago we thought that it would be the likes of Gary Wilkinson, Jared Quayle and Tai Wesley elevating their names to household status much like Hayward, Howard and Mack have for Butler, but USU came up just short. Now all three of those players’ careers in an Aggie uniform are finished, and that epic story of March Madness has yet to show itself for this USU team.
With this college basketball season officially over, and the past generation of staples in USU’s starting lineup graduated, it’s time for the next group of guys to take their shot at writing Utah State’s success story just like Butler has had written for them.
Brockeith Pane, Brady Jardine and Preston Medlin, it’s your turn now.
Matt Sonnenberg is a senior majoring in print journalism. Matt is an avid fan of Aggie athletics and can be found on the front row of every home football and basketball game. He can also be reached at matt.sonn@aggiemail.usu.edu.