Mediocrity's Trick

I'll admit it: Butler and UConn had me fooled.

I listened to every ESPN pundit when they kept telling me Butler wasn't an underdog, and I ignored the fact that they had lost five games in the Horizon League (not a bad league by any stretch, but no team losing five games is national title worthy).

I also ignored the fact that UConn placed ninth in the Big East, going just 9-9 in everyone's favorite conference to overrate. Yeah, the Huskies caught fire and reeled off a great stretch of wins, but that team was still nowhere near as good as Ohio State or Kansas this year.

That Connecticut and Butler played each other in the title game is both the beauty and the curse of the NCAA Tournament. Any team can get hot and go on a run, especially if you have individual players that are on fire (Kemba Walker and Shelvin Mack). But college basketball took a huge step back rather than forward with UConn's 53-41 victory in the National Championship. Yes, UConn's 11 straight wins and Butler two straight trips to the title game are both incredible feats and should be lauded. But those aren't what will be remembered in this game. Instead, we'll remember how UConn was basically fortunate to run into Butler on one of it's coldest shooting nights in years. The Huskies played strong defense, but the Bulldogs' shooting was the bigger issue. Butler went 9-33 from beyond the arc, 8-14 from the foul line, and an astoundingly bad 3-31 on two point field goals. You read that correctly. No defense is that good.

We were all excited to watch these teams play so well en route to this game, but what happened Monday night was pitiful. We allowed ourselves to forget that these teams had been mediocre during the season. There was a reason Butler was an 8 seed, and a reason UConn needed to win the Big East Tourney to get a 3 seed in an off year. During Monday night's game, all those memories came rushing back.

In last year's tournament it almost felt as though Duke deserved an asterisk next to their win, because it seemed so easy going in. If that was the case then, it is all the more pronounced now. What's really sad is that winning the national championship almost takes away from UConn's incredible run, just because of the way that game was played. The Dayton Flyers could have won that game, with or without Juwan Staten and Brandon Spearman.

I used to think that 1 and 2 seeds filling up the Final Four was boring, because there were none of those major upsets. The tournament's unpredictability was always what made it so exciting to watch.

This year, the first four rounds were rife with upsets, each one seeming more stunning than the last. It was great at the time. But the end result? Anything but exciting.