Nothing against Michigan, Michigan State, Louisville, Arizona, and Oregon.  But watching double digit blowouts is just not that exciting.  Heck – even #12 Oregon winning is a large upset over #4 St. Louis – but the Ducks 17 point victory over the Billikens had been up to this point the closest game of the day.  Not much to write about here.

But Marquette and Butler played a classic tournament game.  The Bulldogs jump out to the early half time lead.  The Golden Eagles come storming back to take the lead.  The game goes back and forth several times.  Then, with 4 seconds left, Marquette has two FTs to do what should seal up the game.  And that is exactly what Davante Gardner did – he hit the FTs and gave Marquette what appeared to be a game-ending 4 point lead.

Then, the madness begun.   Butler baseball passes the ball all the way down the field to Andrew Smith who gets a lay-up with just 1 second coming off the clock to cut the lead to 2.  Marquette inexplicably throws the ball out of bounds.  And now, the Golden Eagles are wondering if they were going to have happen to them what they did to Davidson just two days.  Of course, that threat had to be looming in their mind even more since when these two teams played earlier in the season, Butler hit a wild buzzer beater three point shot to win the game.

Lightning did not strike twice though.  Butler couldn’t get the ball in to their shooters, the ball came to Andrew Smith very far away from the basket, and he put up an awkward three-pointer that did not come close – allowing the Golden Eagles to escape again.  Their two victories add up to only 3 points – but at the end of the day, that is all you need.  Survive and advance.

Regardless, thanks to these two teams to bringing back the excitement to the games.  Don’t want to take anything away from the other 5 winners since they dominated their games and earned a well-deserved trip to the Sweet 16.  But winning by 20 points is not as fun to watch as what the Golden Eagles and Bulldogs just did.