The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Mighty Blue Devils held off everyone’s favorite underdog
The Associated Press
A panel of Associated Press sports writers voted in March 2020 on the top 10 men’s basketball games in the history of the NCAA Tournament. The AP game stories are being republished because the sport has been shut down amid the coronavirus pandemic. The following game was voted No. 7 and this story was sent after it wrapped up April 5, 2010.
INDIANAPOLIS » The ball went sailing while the buzzer went off. Where it landed would be the difference between a shining moment for one team, a tearstained loss for another.
Butler forward Gordon Hayward’s halfcourt shot hit backboard, then rim, then barely careened out. Duke beat Butler, 61-59, on Monday night. What a game! And what a way to end the season, even if America’s favorite underdog came up a little short.
“It will become an historic game, a benchmark game,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “Not just the way it was played, but who played in it and what comes about.”
Memorable, indeed, for the way both teams battled, never giving an inch, or giving in on a single possession. And memorable for the way it ended.
Tiny Butler, on a mission to write a sequel to “Hoosiers,” had two chances to win it in the last 4 seconds. Hayward’s more traditional attempt a fadeaway, 15-footer was barely long. Then, after Brian Zoubek made one free throw and intentionally missed the next, Hayward collected the rebound, moved to halfcourt and took another shot that was on line, but barely bounced out.
“I can’t really put it into words because the last couple of plays were just not normal,” said Duke’s Kyle Singler, who scored 19 points and was named the Final Four’s most outstanding player.
The Blue Devils (35-5) got the right bounces at the end to snap Butler’s 25-game winning streak and bring the long-awaited fourth national title back home to the Cameron Crazies.
The “Big Three” Singler, Jon Scheyer (15 points) and Nolan Smith (13) won the Big One for Coach K, his first championship since 2001 and fourth overall, tying him with Adolph Rupp for second place on the alltime list. Krzyzewski is now 4-4 in title games.
“It’s the best one I’ve been involved in of the eight,” he said.
Nobody figured this would be easy, and it wasn’t no way that was going to happen against Butler, the 4,200-student private school that sent millions of brackets to the paper shredder while earning the right to make the 5-mile drive from its historic home, Hinkle Fieldhouse where they filmed “Hoosiers,” to the Final Four.
Butler (33-5) shaved a five-point deficit to one and had a chance to win it, when its best player, Hayward, took the ball at the top of the key, spun and worked his way to the baseline, but was forced to put up an off-balance fadeaway from 15 feet.
He missed, but Duke’s title wasn’t secure until Hayward’s desperation heave bounded out.