Proud to be a Butler Bulldog!

Wow, so many emotions over the past few days not even related to Good Friday and Easter, but related to basketball! Of course the loss of the NCAA National Championship was very disappointing for any Butler fan and it sounds like most of the country since everyone fell in love with the Butler team, Coach Stevens and "The Butler Way". I have never been more proud of my alma mater. I LOVED Butler as a student and I am excited that my university was shone in such a great light. The class and character that was demonstrated by the team was remarkable and the whole country rallied behind them. My senior year was when Butler beat UofL (and I have A LOT of family members that are big UofL fans) to be in the Sweet 16. It was incredible experience so I can not imagine how this ride has been for a current student. I knew then that Butler had a strong team that didn't always get a lot of respect because of the conference and it being a smaller academic/mid-major school. I'm so happy that Butler proved so many wrong that you don't have to have a huge stadium, a coach that gets paid millions of dollars, a basketball budget that is outrageous and can actually have student-athletes on a national championship runner-up team! It still gives me goosebumps thinking about what this team has done for the history of basketball!

For the Final Four game I went to Indy and went to a local bar downtown with some friends and drove back that night.

Halftime

Butler is going to the Championship Game!

And then there were two...

After the win Saturday night I realized that there was NO WAY that I could just stay at home and watch the championship game by myself. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Butler to be playing the championship game in their hometown. Jeremy wanted me to go and was going to stay with Addie. My great friend Ashley said we could go together because her husband was going to be out of town and wasn't able to go.

Ashley and I met up with Tara, Brad and Tara's sisters before the game.

Before heading into the game...

Amazing seeing the Butler Bulldog logo on the front of the stadium!

The stadium...not the best seats, but sooo worth it!

Tip off

This is a video taken during a time-out during the final minute of the game when Butler was within one point. It is hard to tell, but the stadium was soooo loud! The energy was electric!




It was an incredible experience to be at the game. I still keep replaying the final 13 seconds in my head when Hayward missed a jumpshot because of good defense and then his last-second almost half-court shot that almost went in! It was supposed to go in! It was the storybook ending! Everyone was so heart-broken and I can't imagine how the team must have felt. I do know that more people are talking about Butler than Duke. This journey and the team is something that people will be talking about for years to come. I am so proud to be a Butler Bulldog!

P.S. I am already excited for next year with so many great players returning! Now if Hayward and Coach Stevens will just stay put! PLEASE!

P.P.S. I promise to update more pictures since I haven't been the best on the blog lately. I have lots to update with little miss thang's stats and pictures and Easter celebrations.