If you watched tonight’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship game between the University of Connecticut Huskies and the Butler Bulldogs, that was a sound you heard often — as in the ball clanking off the rim after yet another missed shot. The score at half-time was 22-19 for Butler, which was apparently the lowest half-time score in the title game since 1946. That was back in the era of the set shot, the underhand free throw and the four corner stall offence where teams, without the pressure of a 35-second shot clock, would hold the ball for minutes on end without taking a shot.
UConn picked it up a bit in the second half, while Butler, making their second Cinderella run at the NCAA Championship after last year’s nail biter loss to Duke 61-59, remained ice cold. The Bulldogs ended up shooting a horrendous 18.8 per cent from the floor, and lost 53-41 in the most lacklustre championship game in recent memory. It got so bad that we started switching over to the curling where Canada was taking on the United States, desperate to see some points being scored.
After a tournament laden with stirring upsets, the final was a true dud.
