Sports can break your heart. Not in an adult, I can handle this kind of way. Sports cause the kind of heartbreak that you experience when you’re a preteen and the love of your life, at least for that moment, decides to date someone else in your class instead. I walked into Lucas Oil Stadium’s pro shop the day following the game. Amongst every imaginable Colts trinket for sale, remnants of Final Four memorabilia were pushed to the front of the store. The atmosphere was like a ghost town. Sales clerks tried to put on a happy face. They tried to justify the merits of second place coupled with a successful season, but the pain was readily apparent. The bad guys had won, and the country as a whole had lost.

My brother is admittedly one of the least fanatical sports followers alive. He sent me the following email : “I enjoyed watching the basketball game to its completion last night, although my favored team was not the victor. I hope that was “sporty” enough, although I feel the the sentence was swinging more “late 1800’s Victorian era” than “Jock” towards the end of it. The game was an instant classic, even if the endorsement my brother gave doesn’t adequately sum it up.

This year’s tourney was special because of Butler. The Bulldogs did not beat Duke. Would they have won a best of seven series? Who knows. Butler was in the championship because of luck and skill. They hung on to beat lowly Murray State in a nail biter. After pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, they beat higher-seeded, NCAA powerhouses in Syracuse, Kansas State and Michigan State in order. Butler plays standard Hoosier style basketball. They run a hard nose man-to-man defense, where all five players move and shift together in one rhythm. Their offense was focused, patient, and disciplined. They never seemed to take a bad shot, but the monster that is Duke basketball seemed far too powerful.

Unfortunately, Duke was damn good. Kyle Singler, Duke’s junior star forward, played nearly as perfect of a game as possible. Duke, Coach K, and the talented trio of Jon Scheyer, Nolan Smith and Singler were determined to win. The Blue Devils defense held the efficient Butler offense to virtually nothing down the stretch. Butler had always eked out this type of game previously in the tournament, but Duke was just a notch more athletic and a few non-hometown calls better. I never complain about the refs and believe only rarely does officiating change the outcome of the game, but Scheyer’s charge and the non-intentional foul on Butler’s Gordon Hayward (my latest man crush) were two enormous moments that paved the way for Duke and coach Mike Krzyzewski’s fourth national championship. It makes me sick to think Duke is the champion, and I was only a Butler fan for a week.

It’s over now. The cinderella, underdog, whatever you dubbed Butler, is gone. I watched the game with my parents and my wife. We all rooted for Butler, and it wasn’t due to a deep seeded hatred for Duke (although I’m sure my father and I both have this). We need stories, especially in college sports. The NBA has ravaged the complexion of college basketball, and the entire landscaped has been altered. Coaches jump from job to job, and the best players rent a year on a random campus before bolting as soon as the tournament is over. This year, Butler showed us that all the things America loves about basketball can still be found. In the heartland, even a broken heart can be quelled with true love. We all experienced true love with that Butler team, even if it was only for a week or two.

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