The Butler Does It Again, Knocking Off Number One Indiana

Someday, maybe soon, maybe not, the Butler Bulldogs will get the respect they have earned, if not from fans, then perhaps from Las Vegas. The Vegas boys had Butler listed as an 11 point underdog for their matchip Saturday against top ranked and unbeaten Indiana. It shouldn't be a total shocker to see the Bulldogs pull the outright upset in overtime 88-86 Saturday afternoon.

Butler entered the game 7-2 and leave with arguably their biggest regular season victory in years defeating the school that gets lots of press and resides only some 50 miles away.

The Hoosiers rallied late in regulation to knot the game at 76 on a three ball by Yogi Ferrell with six seconds left in regulation. If that seems unlikely it was only a warmup for the most unlikely.

With the game knotted up at 86 and seconds winding down sophomore walk on Alex Barlow, more a baseball hopeful at one point who came to Butler to learn how to coach won the game for the Dogs hitting a short shot in the lane with just over two seconds left to win the game.

Barlow came to Butler as he explained strictly to learn the coaching craft from Butler's Brad Stevens. His twisting floater to win the game might have been better then any shot Stevens, the former player, ever hit. Indiana had a chance to win it at the end as they inbounded the ball with two seconds left. However Jordan Hull's heave from three at the buzzer missed the Butler Bulldogs had their first ever win over a regular season ranked number one team. Butler had had four other chances to beat a top ranked team and never finished the job. This time, thanks to Barlow, all 5-11 of him saw to it they finally did.