March Madness

I am going to admit, I am not the biggest fan of college basketball. However, when it comes to the Butler bulldogs, I have a whole different attitude. When I look back to my time at Butler, I have so many wonderful memories, and included in those are all the games I spent at the historic Hinkle Fieldhouse cheering on my beloved team. I was a proud member of the basketball band and could probably count the number of home games I missed on one hand (seriously, no exaggeration). I traveled to championship games and even the NCAA tournament twice. Unfortunately during my time there, they failed to advance in the tournament and lost badly to the Goliaths they played against. Those games hurt.

Even though I was a student there over 10 years ago, I still follow the team. Although I may not know all of the players' names as I did in the past, I check online to see their record and how the season is going. This year I did fall behind a bit and was pleasantly surprised to see that late into the season they were ranked 11th. That's 11th out of ALL the teams in the NCAA. This is Butler, the school with approximately 4000 students, rated against the big dogs such as Duke, Kentucky and Michigan. Pretty awesome!

On selection night a few Sundays ago I anxiously waited to see where Butler would stand amongst the other teams and was pleased with the 5th seed they were given. The first game they played was against UTEP, and even though they started out sloppy, they won by quite a bit. Next was Murray State, a nail biter that ended with Butler winning by 1 point. They advanced to the sweet sixteen, which they have only done a few times in the history of the school. That game took place last night against Syracuse, a number 1 seed that won the entire championship just a few years back. It was truly the David and Goliath of basketball, and David won! It was such a stressful game, but truly an amazing moment when that timer ticked down to 0. The next game is tomorrow afternoon versus Kansas St. I'm sure it will be another close game, but how amazing would it be for them to move on to the Final Four, which takes place in their own city of Indianapolis. Could they really win the whole thing? As a huge fan, you always hope it happens but think that it never actually will. Maybe this will be the year!

I do have to add a note of how Facebook has made watching this tournament such an amazing experience. I have a huge network of Butler friends on there and we are all many miles apart from each other. However, during each of the games there has been a continuous flow of postings from my fellow Butler fans. The celebration on there last night when they won was incredible, and I loved sharing the emotion of such a great win with all of them!