College Basketball, Butler Bulldogs | featured news

The new Big East officially has its core members, its television deal and a lease to play its conference tournament where the old Big East played it. All that came with the expected announcement Wednesday that Butler, Creighton and Xavier joined seven basketball-playing Catholic schools starting their own league this summer, a conference that has a 12-year deal with Fox Sports and assumes the lease on Madison Square Garden for its championship tournament.

An 11-game postseason run that was equal parts stunning and historic ended with a championship as Connecticut defeated the Butler Bulldogs.

After their latest win on the road to an unlikely spot in the national title game, Connecticut's players talked about shocking the world. Butler's talked about unfinished business. That's what it comes down to in the closing act of a college basketball season turned upside down - a national final between a "power team" with one of the best players in the country that feels like an underdog and a "little guy" that thinks it should be there.

Of course Butler erased a late deficit. Of course the Bulldogs hit a clutch 3-pointer late in overtime. Of course they're going back to the Final Four.

Matt Howard had 20 points and 12 rebounds, and Butler sent home yet another higher seed in the NCAA tournament with a 61-54 victory over Wisconsin on Thursday night.

Duke ended Butler's miracle run through the NCAA basketball tournament by defeating the gritty underdogs 61-59 to win the national championship on Monday.

Yes, it's a matchup pitting a cute bulldog against a devil, America's favorite underdog against the team people love to hate.

Kansas - gone. Kentucky - gone. Syracuse - gone. Little Butler - still going....

Four teams are left on the road to the national championship. In a matchup between bluebloods and the blue-collared, South Regional champion Duke will face East Regional champ West Virginia. And in a meeting of Final Four veterans and never-beens, it will be Midwest Regional champ Michigan State against West Regional champion Butler.