COLUMN: Shout out to the little man

    Score two for the little guys.

    As if last year’s incredible run to the Final Four from Butler wasn’t impressive enough, the Bulldogs have delivered an encore performance in 2011, despite losing their best player from a year ago when Gordon Hayward decided to leave for the NBA after his sophomore season. In my opinion, Hayward was the best player in all of college basketball at this time last year, so one can only imagine and dream of the impact he might have had on Butler’s team had he returned for this season, but Matt Howard, Shelvin Mack and company didn’t seem to let Hayward’s loss phase them the slightest bit when tournament time rolled around again this year.

    Butler isn’t alone this time around though. This year there is no lone representative from a mid-major conference in the Final Four. This year half of the Final Four consists of mid-major schools.

    Enter the Rams of Virgina Commonwealth.

    Considering that in the past 20 years prior to last weekend, there had only been four instances of teams from outside the big six conference cracking the Final Four, the fact that two non-BCS schools just made the final four only lends more evidence to the idea that the playing field across college sports is leveling itself out, despite whatever perceptions the national media, experts or casual fans may have about whether or not the little schools can hang with the big boys.

    In years past, any time a mid-major cracked the Final Four, it was looked at as a fluke. A cute little run put together by a school that everybody underestimated until reality finally caught up to them when it really counted.

    Last year Butler changed that. Last year Butler showed that they can take a perennial power like Duke all the way to the wire.

    This year hasn’t been much different either. This year’s Virginia Commonwealth team has already been thoroughly battle-tested throughout the tournament, starting off as one of eight teams in the play-in games, beating a No. 6 and No. 3 through its first two games, and eventually dominating No. 1 seeded Kansas to earn their spot in the Final Four.

    All things aside from how awesome that all of this has been to watch as a college basketball fan, the actual meaning of it runs a lot deeper than just a few upsets and a magical run. With two teams cracking the Final Four just one year removed from Butler’s run of 2010, this kind of thing isn’t a fluke anymore. This kind of thing will probably start happening more and more as teams from the smaller schools realize that a Final Four bid is much more of an attainable goal for them rather than something that might just come through a million-to-one run of luck through the big dance.

    On the flip side of that, I don’t see the perception of perpetual supremacy from the power-conference teams going anywhere anytime soon. If they want to continue treating the Butlers and VCUs of the world like they are inferior, I say let them. It only makes it that much easier for the mid-majors to ramp their intensity level to something above and beyond what the big boys can handle or even rebound from if they come into a game with lowered expectations about a mid-majors capabilities to beat them.

    While the idea of an all-mid-major championship game won’t happen just yet, this will be the second year that a mid-major will be among the final two teams standing, with Butler and VCU squaring off Saturday. From there, anything can happen. Each team has knocked off seeds as high or higher already this than what they’d face in the championship game. With more chances and opportunities for these small conference teams to play in the Final Four, one of them is bound to rock the foundation of the college basketball world eventually and win it all.

    This year one of either Butler or VCU will have that chance. This could epitomize the term “epic win” for all the mid-majors of the world.

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.