The story lives for another two days.
Butler survived Saturday’s first national semifinal, 52-50, sending Michigan State home in a very tight, hard-nosed defensive game. The “mid-major” playing mere miles from its campus, making for one of the fuzziest story lines the Final Four has seen in years, continued its improbable run toward the title. Here’s how the Bulldogs pulled off the win and moved onto Monday night’s national championship game.
– Despite having only one field goal in the final 12:38, Butler won this game the same way they’ve won their previous 24 games this year. With defense. Michigan State struggled to get good looks around the basket all night long for two reasons: Butler has a great half court defense and the Bulldogs forced Michigan State to make a ton of mistakes. It was a formula that led to the Spartans finishing with their second lowest point total of the season.
Michigan State just couldn’t hang onto the ball. The Bulldogs, despite not featuring a pressure defense that hounds you full court, has an incredible knack for forcing teams to make mistakes in the half court set and that was on display Saturday. Michigan State turned it over 16 times while Butler finished with just 8 giving the Bulldogs a ridiculous 20-2 points off turnovers advantage.
Not having Kalin Lucas at point guard finally caught up with the Spartans and coach Tom Izzo admitted as much after the game. The Michigan State point guard, who was sidelined with a torn Achilles’ Tendon, was dearly missed as Korie Lucious and Durrell Summers combined for seven turnovers. Lucious had five on his own.
– While Butler hits its free throws, Michigan State killed itself at the stripe. The Spartans came into the game shooting just 68.8 percent from the line so they weren’t a great free throwing shooting team to begin with. But boy did it show at the worst possible time. State was brutal in the second half, missing 6 of its 11 attempts, finishing the game making just 10 of 18. Butler, meanwhile, found itself in the bonus before the midway point of the second half and made the most of its time on the line; Butler was 17 of 24. Good thing considering the Bulldogs shot just 30.6 percent from the field.
– Michigan State did not do a good enough job of exploiting its significant size advantage in the front court. Raymar Morgan finished with a paltry 4 points. So did Delvon Roe. You can chalk up the lack of production to foul trouble. It seemed like half of the Spartans rotation had at least three fouls midway through the second half. It took away some of their aggressiveness on the offensive end and thankfully it didn’t kill them on the defensive end because Butler was so woeful scoring in the second half. And I think some of the calls by the officials, that seemed to favor Butler, got into the head of the Spartans. Surprisingly, Michigan State only held a slight rebounding edge, 34-30. Look, when Matt Howard, all 6-foot-8 and 230 pound is your big threat underneath as is the case with Butler, you are the very definition of undersized. Michigan State should have finished with a much bigger advantage on the glass.
– Gordon Hayward was great. The sophomore finished with 19 points and 9 rebounds and was the only one doing any kind of scoring for Butler in the first half. In the second half, it was his defense and rebounding that saved the day when the Bulldogs couldn’t buy a bucket.
