Butler did it - Indiana school bumps off two favorites

INDIANAPOLIS -- Of all the schools from this basketball-crazy state to reach the round of 16, Butler probably would seem the least likely.

Then again, this is the school where "Hoosiers" was filmed.

"If you ask me, I think we play a little like the team from 'Hoosiers.' We play very fundamentally sound. They were the type of team that played together, and they're a small school," guard Brandon Miller said.

"People don't expect us to beat major schools, just like they didn't expect them to win in 'Hoosiers."'

The 12th-seeded Bulldogs stunned Mississippi State and Louisville to reach the third round of the NCAA tournament, advancing to a matchup Friday against Oklahoma in Albany, N.Y.

"Good or bad, every program's known for something," Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson said. "The thing I love the most about Butler's team is they have huge hearts and they play for each other."

On Monday, a banner celebrating the team's surprising success was at one end of 75-year-old Hinkle Fieldhouse -- used in part of the 1987 movie about countryside Milan High School, which beat a string of bigger schools to capture the state basketball title in 1954.

With its concrete hallway, the building still looks like something out of that bygone era.

Senior starters Darnell Archey and Joel Cornette stood at a folding table adorned with a handwritten sign serving as a temporary ticket window.

You think that happens at Indiana or Purdue?

Of course, those Big Ten powers are already out of the tournament, while the Horizon League's Butler is still playing (as is another school from the state, Notre Dame).

Fans around the country will learn more about Butler this week. CBS will spend all week filming the Bulldogs, the tournament's feel-good story.

Butler felt it deserved a spot in last year's 65-team field but wasn't invited. And the Bulldogs don't exactly have a big basketball tradition: Their only other trip to the NCAA tournament's round of 16 came back in 1962 -- when the event started with only 25 teams.

When the team made its first appearance in the lesser National Invitation Tournament, in 1958, the star player was Bobby Plump. Four years earlier, he led Milan to that stunning state title.

He was the model for Jimmy Chitwood, the best player in "Hoosiers." Now Plump owns a restaurant a few miles from Butler's campus.

"I guarantee you there's not another Sweet 16 team that has its players selling tickets, but that's the Butler way," Plump said.

About 500 students greeted the team's bus when it returned home from Birmingham, Ala., on Sunday night, then gathered around the team inside Hinkle Fieldhouse for speeches from Archey and Cornette.

Some fans asked for autographs.

"I love these guys," said Pat Morrison, who attended all of the Bulldogs' home games this season. "They don't get the respect of the larger schools, but they play as a team and that's what I love about them."

Now the Bulldogs want to prove they can keep winning -- for all the little schools that never had a chance.

"Why not set our goal as a national championship?" Cornette asked.

Actually, Butler already has won such a title, of sorts.

In 1924, before there was an NCAA tournament or NIT, Butler won an AAU national championship. And in 1929, Butler was picked as the top college basketball team in the country by the Veteran Athletes of Philadelphia.

Cornette, Archey and their teammates have their sights on a more modern triumph.

And Oklahoma's Sampson is all too aware of how talented they are.

"They beat Mississippi State and that was no fluke -- they beat 'em, and Butler didn't play great and they still beat 'em," the coach said. "Butler's good."