It is about Butler but there is plenty about Wood and WSU too.
Butler will dance, but Horizon loss stings
March 7, 2007
The first question in the postgame press conference might have hurt as much as the defeat. Butler coach Todd Lickliter made a short statement about losing the Horizon League championship game to Wright State, then waited longer than he expected to hear something from the assembled reporters. For a moment, he figured he could make it to the bus without having to say another word.
No such luck. At long last he was asked about the difference between the Butler team that tore through "big guys" such as Notre Dame, Indiana, Tennessee and Gonzaga back in November and the one that lost four of its final eight games -- and whether the Bulldogs could "pull it together" to do some damage in the NCAA Tournament.
The writer was on a tight deadline. The wording probably was not what he had in mind. It surely, though, was not what Lickliter would have preferred.
"I don't think we have to pull anything together," he said. "Any big guys, as you say, that come in here are leaving the same way we did."
Lickliter figures if he were coaching at a school in a big-money conference, he wouldn't have to defend his team for finishing 27-6 with a road loss in the final game. He thinks there's a double standard, that the big guys are forgiven for road losses. Many coaches at the mid-major level believe this. They're partly right, but they might be surprised by how a successful team such as Pittsburgh has been received by the media.
Butler did not lose the Horizon championship in a neutral environment, like you get at the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden. Butler lost at Wright State's Nutter Center, which was nutty from a half-hour before tip-off until the last of the court-rushing students got bored with jumping around on the hardwood.
Losing on the road happens to great teams in every college basketball conference. It just doesn't happen to many in their conference tournaments. The Horizon League allows the highest remaining seed to play at home, and Wright State held a tiebreaker edge over the Bulldogs after both finished 13-3. If Lickliter is disappointed about anything in the season, it's that a late home loss to Loyola led to that deadlock. The smallest difference became the greatest advantage.
Hey, the smallest player was the greatest advantage, too. Wright State's DaShaun Wood, a nominee for the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award for the best college senior 6-0 or shorter, scorched the Butler defense for 27 points including the game-busting 3-pointer with 1:06 to play.
Lickliter was asked about how the Bulldogs had chosen to defend Wood, certainly a fair question. They had used multiple defenders against him, and forward Drew Streicher and guard Mike Green had some success. On that big Wood jumpshot, however, Streicher got hung up trailing a sideline screen and no one hedged out to disrupt the play. Wood got a clean look at the goal, and he did not waste it.
"It's just a battle of who's going to have the ball last and who's going to make a play," Wood said.
There's no question somebody lost an NCAA Tournament bid tonight, but it was not Butler. You never get a perfect year, when all the obvious at-large selections from apparent one-bid leagues win their conference tournaments and head to the show with automatic bids. The committee's work had been getting easier by the day, though. Winthrop and Davidson weren't sure picks because their league competition was marginal, but they eliminated the need to debate their impressive credentials. VCU had won too many games not to have a chance, but perhaps not enough of the right games until it squeezed past George Mason to win the Colonial. Creighton, a likely at-large team, won the Missouri Valley. Gonzaga probably was going, but now it surely is.
Butler will be there, and probably will be a factor. It'll be dependent on guard A.J. Graves having a better shooting night. He was 5-of-14 from the field, 2-of-9 from 3-point range. He's had his share of such games, but many more where he dominated opponents with his clever moves and sweet touch.
"If this were the last game, I'd be crushed," Lickliter said. "Because I don't want it to end.
"To know you've got a good chance to play in the greatest sporting event in the world, it takes a little of the sting out. But we are a program that wants to play for championships, and if you play for them, you want to win them."
www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=184861
