Sports Weekend

Let's start the weekend with Thursday night.  As I drove home (or tried to) from St. Louis, I spent most of the miles on I-70 between Terre Haute and Indianapolis scanning my radio channels for the Butler-SLU game.

I didn't start hearing it clearly until I was passing alongsite Indianapolis International Airport.  I was surprised that 1070 (The Fan) was the only station in the area that seemed to be carrying the game, and even more surprised that the former home of Indy's famous WIBC had such a weak signal.

But the station came in clearly for the entire second half, while I was marooned on I-65 on a road that seemed more like a hockey rink in the horrible Thursday night weather.

Butler's Bulldogs performed even worse than the weather.  They had obviously been knocked in the teeth by the Billikens in the first half, then were abused like a mouse being slowly toyed with by the cat that's about to kill it.  I listened as the Bulldogs made a couple of valiant runs to get the score back in range, but as soon as Butler threatened to close the gap to less than 10 points, SLU would slam the door on them and run their lead back up to 16 or 18.

Saturday afternoon the Rhode Island Rams arrived at Hinkle Fieldhouse, and the Bulldogs played the first half looking like they were still hung over from their thrashing of Thursday.  Butler played very poorly and fell behind early to the Rams in the first half.  But late in the half, Rotnei Clarke seemed to take control of the team, hitting some shots and finding open shooters to help his team erase the Rams' lead and allow Butler to start the second half with essentially a clean slate.

The second half I saw the old Butler team that had disappeared for nearly a game and a half.  They were aggressive, physical, deadly from 3-point range, and smothering the Rams' offense.

Are the Bulldogs back on track, or do they have deeper trouble they need to overcome between now and the NCAA tournament?  We'll find out.

Then there was the game of the weekend, Michigan at Indiana.  Just a great game all around.  The Hoosiers pulled away for the win, but it seemed they rode the wave of a wild home crowd.  If Indiana's really going to challenge for the national championship, they are going to have to prove that they can go into the gyms at Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio State, Michigan State, and of course Michigan and still find a way to win.

The Hoosiers will get the chance to prove it in the coming weeks.  I think at the end of the regular season, there won't be very many Big 10 teams left in the top 10 nationally.  They're going to keep knocking each other out, while teams like Florida, Kansas and Duke cruise past weaker opponents in their respective leagues.

No doubt the NCAA tournament's going to be a lot of fun this spring.  If I could pick my perfect Final Four, it would be Indiana, Michigan, Duke, and Butler.  The best Final Four ever.