The 2011 National Championship

by Joseph Landini
High Heat Network

The two hottest teams in college basketball. The two most deserving teams in the land. The two teams not expected to make this run. Two teams with mastermind head coaches. The two teams with the same goal, but come from totally different backgrounds. On Monday April 4th 2011, the Butler Bulldogs will face off against the Connecticut Huskies for the biggest prize of them all. Each team will go into Monday night's contest flaming hot.

Starting with the underdog Butler, which what they have been the entire NCAA Tournament. The hotness though has come from before the tournament. Butler has not lost a game in over two MONTHS, February 3rd to be exact when they lost to Youngstown State 62-60. After winning the Horizon League in easy fashion, Butler was put into the Southeast region and granted an 8 seed.

The first test would be an Old Dominion team which has veteran experience and many of the experts picks behind them to pull off the upset. For the entire game this was a battle, like it was set out to be, but when push came to shove Matt Howard was at the right place in the right time. Howard propelled Butler into the next round with a layup with no time remaining sinking the Monarchs dreams. The next round would see Howard and company take on the number one seeded Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh coming into the tournament was said to have the easiest road, and was the highest seed to come out of college basketball's best conference. Pittsburgh played well enough to win this game, but apparently not smart enough. At the end of the game Pittsburgh decided to put players on the foul lines with minimal time remaining. After a missed free throw by Pittsburgh, they accidentally foul Matt Howard on the rebound and send him to the line. Howard made the free throw with 0.8 seconds remaining on the clock and Butler pulled off the Cinderella upset to defeat the top seed by one point. After another rough push and shove game, there was no way Butler could defeat a Wisconsin team who were coming in after beating a streaking Kansas State team right? Wrong. Butler turned up the defense and held the Badgers high powered offense to 30% shooting from the floor. In the regional semi final Butler would face another strong test in a complete team in Florida. 74-71 in overtime excite anyone? Well it was all the excitement for Butler as they earned themselves another trip to the Final Four. Despite 25 by Vernon Macklin, Florida could not stop the leadership of Shelvin Mack. Behind his 27, Butler was able to overcome the barrage of Florida. Based on seeding and from the outside looking in, the national semi final would be easy as they were facing a Virginia Commonwealth team with an 11 seeding. The two Cinderellas would battle, but Butler would show to be too experienced at the end of this game to pull away with the victory. Going into that game VCU had played in the play in game and defeated one member of all the major conferences. Butler now must win one more to complete a more then historic run, and do what they could not do last year.

Not only has Butler been making history, but Connecticut has been doing the unthinkable. Dating back to the Big East Tournament, Connecticut played on opening day of it, which would mean to gain the crown they would need to win five games in five days. They did just that. They would defeat Depaul, Georgetown, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Louisville to win the Big East trophy.

Granted with the 3 seed in the West region Connecticut would trampled Bucknell, with an all around team effort and a near triple double by Kemba Walker. They would then meet foe Cincinnati in the second round, where they would shoot poorly but still have enough will to hold off the fighting and fierce Bearcats. Then it would be time to head west, and face San Diego State who had only lost twice all year. Make that three. Kemba was being Kemba, and Connecticut defeated the number two seed behind Walker's 36. Going into this tournament the future match up to watch was going to be Kemba Walker/UConn against Nolan Smith and Kyrie Irving/Duke. Fortunately for Connecticut Duke would trip up to Arizona. With a strong will of defense and possibly an angel looking after them Arizona missed two potential game winning threes as time expired. Connecticut behind Walker's 20 and Jeremy Lamb's 19 punched their ticket to the Final Four. If the Arizona game was not a big enough test to them, maybe a pissed off Kentucky team would suit their needs. Kentucky going into the Final Four had defeated the best team in the nation Ohio State, and was looking back to the Maui Invitational final where they got embarrassed by these same Huskies. Throughout this game UConn led. At halftime the Huskies would lead by 10, but then lose it. Fighting back, Jeremy Lamb's smoothness and Kemba Walker's tenacity would hold true. Kentucky could not find a way to score in the final minutes, and UConn defeated Kentucky again 56-55.

Neither team was expected to be in this spot. For Butler they were expected to take a step back after losing their star player in Gordon Hayward, and for Connecticut the middle of the pack would be fitting as they had a roster in rebuild mode. Apparently Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack were enough for Butler to get back to the same spot as last year. For UConn, the player of the year potential of Kemba Walker, and the rise of Jeremy Lamb, proved enough to get to where a well known tournament team should be.

Neither of these teams are the best college basketball team, and neither are the most dominant.It is only fitting though that the two hottest teams in America will be facing off for the National Championship. Both teams come in scorching hot and with gold in their eyes. For Butler this is the second year straight they will be playing for the title, after losing last year to Duke. For Connecticut this will be the closest they have been to the National Title game, since losing to Michigan State in the Final Four in 2009.