Well it’s here let’s face it, Duke will beat Butler tonight to win the National Championship!

Posted by By Sports Session at 5 April, at 06 : 47 AM Print

Let me preface this by saying that I do not want to see Duke win, but the magical run for The Bulter Bulldogs is going to end Monday night in Indianapolis.

Butler is a good basketball team, some can even argue that they can be considered one of the better teams in college basketball this year.  They were ranked in the preseason top 10, so obviously someone knew they were going to be good.

They are well-coached and have many good athletes who bring different attributes to the team every game. They even have players who may very well be playing in the NBA in the near future with the help of this tournament run.

But they are going up against the Duke Blue Devils a team that used to call the Final Four their home seemingly every year up until the last several years.  This Duke team is different than the three point shooting happy teams of past seasons, these Blue Devils can actually rebound and play tough in the paint.

People doubted Duke because they dominated a normally strong ACC conference which suffered through a down year.  With the conference being down, and Duke destroyed by the likes of Georgetown and bested by Maryland it was thought this team lacked the toughness for a deep tournament run.

Duke has a three headed monster in the trio of Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith and Jon Scheyer who make up a bulk of the Blue Devils scoring.  But Brian Zoubek among other low post players have provided timely and sometimes dominating rebounding advantages that Duke has lacked in the past.

Singler, Smith, and Scheyer have elevated their play to a point where opposing defenses have trouble stopping one, if not all, of them.  Even on nights where they are not shooting well from the field, the offensive and defensive rebounding capabilities of their low post players have proven to be live savers for the Blue Devils.

I can only see limited options for Butler to create a game plan to stop the three very talented players. Stevens will have to hope that they just miss shots or make uncharacteristic mistakes, which have happened to them at times this season.

On the defensive end, Duke will surely put the majority of its pressure on Hayward, but Butler has shown that they can score with their three headed monster as well.  Hayward, Howard, and Mack all have the ability to win their matchups on the floor.  Butler did a good job rebounding with Michigan State which is one of the top rebounding teams in the country.

I think Duke will play decent defense against Butler and vice versa, but it is simply going to come down to the fact that Butler does not shoot a good percentage from the field.  While Duke typically does shoot a good percentage, so unless Butler can find a way to shoot better and keep Duke off of the boards this game will be over quickly.

For once I sure hope I am wrong, it would make me very happy if Butler won this game.

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