NCAA Tournament: A Testament to Brotherhood

Gordon Hayward let the ball fly at mid-court right before the buzzer sounded.
NCAA Tournament: A Testament to Brotherhood
Duke senior Lance Thomas hugs coach Mike Krzyzewski while the Blue Devils celebrate. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
4/6/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/duke98271203.jpg" alt="Duke senior Lance Thomas hugs coach Mike Krzyzewski while the Blue Devils celebrate. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)" title="Duke senior Lance Thomas hugs coach Mike Krzyzewski while the Blue Devils celebrate. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1821343"/></a>
Duke senior Lance Thomas hugs coach Mike Krzyzewski while the Blue Devils celebrate. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS—Gordon Hayward let the ball fly at mid-court right before the buzzer sounded. The ball banked off the glass and hit the rim. A collective gasp went through the crowd as a million thoughts raced in a split second.

And then it was over. The ball clanked off the rim and bounced out. Groan in agony. Or elated sigh of relief, depending on which side you were on. “I was standing at half court and I thought it was going in. That makes it even a little more devastating,” Butler junior Matt Howard said.

The Bulldogs were one bounce away from creating pandemonium. “We just came up one possession short in a game with about 145 possessions. It’s hard to stomach when you’re on the wrong end of that,” Butler coach Brad Stevens said.

However, one can never overstate what Stevens has achieved in the past month while putting Butler University on the map. The 33-year-old coach is the second youngest to ever reach an NCAA championship game.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski was Stevens’s age 30 years ago. “When I look at Brad, I say, ‘How far ahead is he from where I was?’ You know, he’s a much better coach. He’s done a great job. He’s already established himself. I was in the midst of trying to find out who the heck I was at this level,” Krzyzewski said.

Coach K certainly found himself and is now one of the most decorated and accomplished coaches in college basketball history. His four national titles match Adolph Rupp’s for second only behind John Wooden, and surpass mentor Bobby Knight’s three. But Krzyzewski will never let his achievements become the storyline.

“Tonight is not about that,” he said after the game. “Tonight is all about these guys. That’s what I’ve tried to do all season long.”

Krzyzewski is right. In the end, after all the hoopla, glamor, and television cameras, what you’re left with is a group of young men with a coach who care more about each other than a national championship.

“As I told the team in the locker room, the thing that goes through my mind most is not even basketball,” Butler senior Avery Jukes said. “It’s about the bond that I have with my teammates, the fun that we had off the court, our trips, our away games, Italy. It was a great, great time. More than just basketball.”

What we often forget is that the months of March and early April are about more than just winning and losing. “Whatever happens on the basketball court, we don’t want it to be the highlight of your life,” Stevens said.

“This will be a big highlight, but I want these guys to be able to move on and do bigger and better things when they’re done.”

Coaches may draw up the Xs and Os on the court, but they are father figures and teachers off of it. “We keep in mind why we’re in the business: to help young people, to educate young people,” Minnesota coach and former president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches Tubby Smith said.

“Some of the most influential people in my life have been coaches, teachers, so I think that’s the impact that coaches have.”

The NCAA Tournament is about a journey between brothers. When Kentucky, arguably one of the best teams in the tournament, lost to West Virginia in the Elite Eight, freshman star DeMarcus Cousins said, “The part that hurts the most is that we will never get a chance to play with each other again.”

For Duke, even though the journey just happened to end with the ultimate victory in college basketball, it was a journey the seniors took together for four years. “It’s been an absolute progression. You can see the difference every single year,” senior Brian Zoubek said.

Playing your last collegiate game always holds special significance in a player’s heart. Duke All-American senior Jon Scheyer, who made the all-tournament team, added, “To finish it like this means a lot, especially going through it with these guys every day.”

Whether you sweat together for a year or four, the bonds of brotherhood have been forged for life. Perhaps those are the life lessons that Stevens wants his players to take with them when they leave Butler.

In the end, the NCAA Tournament inspires us to be better than ourselves. “I think every year you get inspired by groups that come together that are certainly willing to put aside their individual talent for the betterment of the team,” Stevens said. “If that can be the inspiration, then we are really honored to carry that flag.”