You could argue that this year's tournament is the most entertaining in years, if not ever. Saturday's games did nothing to alter that.
What else is there to say about Butler at this point? Brad Stevens, at 33, has put himself firmly in the top echelon of coaches, and will get a multi-million dollar payoff as soon as he decides he wants it.
In the Indianapolis paper, columnist Bob Kravitz argues that there's no way Butler can keep him, that he's meant for bigger things, and he's probably right, unless of course Stevens doesn't want to go. Who knows? Likely only Mr. and Mrs. Stevens.
Folks around the program are fond of talking about "the Butler way," and part of that includes not renegotiating Stevens' contract after last season, but simply giving him a large raise, no questions asked.
Stevens has said he admires and appreciates that, and his boss is a predecessor as coach. There are things worth keeping, clearly.
Perhaps the best thing about Butler is that it's still far enough from the so-called big time to avoid a lot of the crap that infects most of the college basketball world. Like Arizona shortly after the arrival of Lute Olson, there is a level of innocence still.
That's certainly not the case for the second team to make the Final Four.
In many ways, UConn, the last Big East team alive, is the poster child for college corruption. When you see Jim Calhoun's teams play, they typically play the game at a high level. Defense is superb, offense is balanced, and he definitely knows how to coach.
Yet when you look at his program, it frankly reeks. Whether it's restraining orders, drug arrests, assistants being arrested for solicitation, players stealing laptops from fellow students, shoplifting charges or most recently the role of a former student manager-turned-agent played in recruitment of Nate Miles, there is a stench about Calhoun's program. And when you look at the overall stench, it's no better than what happened at UNLV or Kentucky or anywhere else.
The sad thing is that while Calhoun was not a supernova talent who burst on the scene like Stevens -- rather he was a talented scrapper who came up the hard way and has the classic resentment of the silver spoon -- he nonetheless took a downtrodden, more or less anonymous program and raised it to the top of the game. People forget that UConn at one point was sort of where DePaul is now, only without the deep historical tradition the Blue Demons have. They were no better than Seton Hall or Rutgers and actually probably worse.
You have to wonder if Stevens, when he looks at the other schools and coaches who are left, except for VCU and Shaka Smart who is about the same age and now on a similar trajectory, what he thinks: is Calhoun his future? Calipari?
Does he want to move to a big school and get caught up in that world? Does his ego require it? And what if that world comes to Butler, still a relative haven from the world that those sorts of coaches call home?
There's a world of difference still between Stevens and Calhoun, between Butler and UConn, between Bulldogs and Huskies.
One hopes that as the world continues to open for Stevens, as the seductive powers of money and fame work their corrosive magic, that he can stay true to the Butler way whether he stays at Butler or not.
One hopes that when he looks down the sideline Saturday and sees Calhoun, that he sees what fame and fortune have done to the one-time scrapper.
No question that this year's UConn team has sprung from Calhoun's tenacity and that aspect of his character is magnificent. Yet just behind it is his arrogance and his willingness to either cut corners or allow his assistants to do it (and worse yet allow them to attempt to assume the blame, likely derailing or at least slowing their careers).
One hopes that Stevens, and now Smart as well, are, well, smarter than that. But you don't know how success magnifies your flaws until you get there.
Whatever happens, however admirable Calhoun's resilience may be, the fact is that he runs a corrupt and often disturbing program. The contrast between the two couldn't be clearer. Butler may not win next weekend, but Stevens will if he learns the lessons Calhoun has refused to.
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