NCAA Tournament Championship - Duke vs Butler

Monday, 9:21 p.m. ET, CBS

The Duke Blue Devils are going to be an overwhelming favorite Monday night in Indianapolis when the NCAA Division I men's basketball championship is contested at Lucas Oil Stadium.

A lot of people, if asked whether the underdog Butler Bulldogs can stay within single digits and keep this title tilt reasonably competitive, would still take Duke. That's how good the Blue Devils looked Saturday night in their demolition of a very good and accomplished West Virginia club.

If you've seen Duke play a good 12-15 times this season - any 12 to 15 games, too - the Devils never were as impressive as they looked in the second national semifinal as nighttime dawned in Hoosier country. Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, and Jon Scheyer absolutely dominated West Virginia's perimeter defenders, combining to post 63 points on 22-of-45 shooting, 12-of-23 on threes, and 17 assists along with just three turnovers, all in extended minutes. The Blue Devils crashed the offensive glass, with Brian Zoubek leading the charge as they got open look after open look off offensive rebounds. They turned the ball over just five times as a team. That's virtually flawless stuff from a team that's undergone its most positive transformation not during the regular season, but in the midst of an increasingly impressive NCAA Tournament run that has Mike Krzyzewski within one win of a national title that would place him - and Duke as a program - on a higher plateau within the world of college basketball.

If you want an idea of how good Duke was last night, think about this. The Blue Devils were the most efficient offensive team in the country this season, and last night was their second best offensive performance of the year. The best? When they scored 114 points against Penn back in December.

Think about that.

Butler is going to have its work cut out. The Bulldogs will be at a tremendous size disadvantage. With Matt Howard on the floor (which isn't a certainty, as he may have gotten a concussion in Saturday's semifinal against Michigan State), the BU front line consists of the 6'8" Howard, 6'3" Willie Veasley, and the 6'9" Hayward, who is a natural two guard. Without Howard, Butler basically has to go to a five-guard lineup and sacrifice a lot of length on the court.

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Duke, on the other hand, is as big as it has been in a long time. Zoubek, who is finally embracing his 7'0" frame, and Lance Thomas, a workhorse at 6'8", start for Coach K, while the 6'10" Plumlees - Miles and Mason - come in off the bench. Those four go to the glass hard. Butler has been able to handle a couple of very good rebounding teams the last two games - Michigan State and Kansas State - but Duke is bigger than either of those two teams.

The Bulldogs are also going to have to slow down the three-headed monster of Smith, Scheyer and Singler. Again, Butler has the tools and the track record to make you believe that they can slow down talented perimeter players, but the Bulldogs have yet to face a team with three weapons as potent as the ones that comprise Duke's backcourt.

If Butler is going to win this game, the Bulldogs will do it defensively. Coach Brad Stevens's studs need to turn this game into the one they played against Michigan State. This final throwdown needs to be a slow-paced (Bull)dogfight. Butler won't be able to catch Duke if it tries to run with the Devil, but if the Bulldogs can make this an ugly game played in the 50s, they have a shot.

Given all the David and Goliath references that are already flying around - fast and furious - in the hours before tip-off, that "shot" might as well be referred to as a slingshot.

We'll see if Butler can pull a little Villanova 1985 magic out of its hat. The only thing left to do is release the jump ball and play 40 minutes.

By: Matt Zemek
ACC-Fans Senior Staff Writer