Gasp. Water.
With 3.6 seconds left, he could not ice the game, but nonetheless drained the first free throw. 'Twas a two point lead. His second attempt intentionally doinked off the iron, landing in the arms of — oh, guess who — Heyward.
Ack. Medic.
He began dribbling around some stationary Duke players, none of whom wanted to be the guy eternally ostracized for fouling at this juncture. (Replays showed Howard completely laying out Singler on a pick-bodyslam hybrid during this series of events.)
Heyward traversed halfcourt and heaved up a 40-foot prayer for the win. Buzzer. Off the backboard. Off the rim.
It was the gut punch I needed to properly begin using my lungs.
In the end Heyward had two incredibly tough shots to capture a national championship for Butler. With higher stakes than merely upsetting a 1-seed or reaching the Final Four, such baskets need to be converted. And nobody faults Heyward for not making them, although, given how the tournament went, nobody would've been surprised if his last-second heave would have swished through the twine.
The despised superior team wins most of the time for a reason. In that regard, one could say that this was the final "upset" in a bevy of strange games over the past three weeks. While millions of casual sports fans may be dejected over who won, the fact that the tournament is finally over will be very healthy for their tracheae.
Article comments
1 - Baritone
No one - namely you and my wife - gave Butler a snow ball's chance against Duke. And there were at least 2 or 3 times during the game including the 1 you mentioned when it appeared that the Devils were going to take control and coast to a relatively easy win with the hapless Bulldogs gasping for breath somewhat like yourself and wondering what hit them.
The most frustrating thing about the game was watching all those Butler shots clang off the iron or bounce away off the backboard.
In the end, though, it was just a damned good basketball game. While the outcome was disappointing, I can't find anything bad to say about Duke and certainly not their coach. While I refuse to check Wikipedia to see how to spell his name, Coach K (will suffice) is truly one of the class acts in college athletics. For some reason I was mildly surprised to hear that this was his 30th season at Duke.
I go back to the early Bob Knight days at IU. Coach K had been one of Knight's assistants at Army. Since his arrival at Duke, he has put together one of the best coaching careers ever, at any level, and done so with class. It's certainly no cause for embarrassment to lose to a Mike Kshcxowicr@;)zski team.
B