INDIANAPOLIS — Duke’s players and coaches knew going into Monday night’s national title game that they could expect nothing short of a boxing match against Butler. The Bulldogs have been known for defense and defense only. Butler had scored more than 63 points in the NCAA Tournament only once—in the first round of the Tournament, ages ago in college basketball time—but also hadn’t allowed more than 59 since February.
A defensive battle is exactly what Duke got in Lucas Oil Stadium. And as it turned out, all the Blue Devils needed to do to win was surpass that ceiling of 59 points.
Duke just did, scoring 61 total, and Butler scored exactly 59. That two-point margin was the difference in one of the most exciting championship games in recent memory.
But it wasn’t one of the prettiest or highest-scoring, and that can be attributed to Butler’s intensity around its own basket. Facing a halfcourt defense that senior Lance Thomas called the most intense the Blue Devils had seen all season, Duke struggled to develop any kind of flow on offense. That was particularly evident in the backcourt—senior Jon Scheyer and junior Nolan Smith, two of the most dynamic scorers on the floor, needed 27 field goal attempts between them to muster 28 total points.
“I thought our guards, off the bench and that started, did as good a job as you can do on Smith and Scheyer,” Butler head coach Brad Stevens said. “What are they, 10-for-27 combined, 2-for-10 from three? That’s the recipe for beating them.”
The one shining light for Duke’s offense, at least until the final moments, was Kyle Singler. The junior, who will surely be drafted in the first round if he chooses to leave for the NBA, was able to score 19 points on 7-of-13 shooting. But he wasn’t able to get those baskets off of easy layups or in transition—many of his points came on challenging turnaround jumpers or catch-and-shoot moves off of double screens, such as the basket he scored to put Duke up three with 4:47 to play.
Singler did airball a makeable jumper in the final minute, perhaps a testament to how hard he and his teammates had been made to work for each shot against the Bulldogs.
“We were guarding him with a 6-foot-2, very, very, very good defender in Willie Veasley,” Stevens said. “Singler had to earn everything he got.”
Butler’s defense very nearly gave the Bulldogs a stunning national championship in the program’s first appearance in the Final Four, and in its home city, no less. This game went right down to the wire, and if Gordon Hayward had made one of two challenging shots in the final 15 seconds, he surely would have credited his team’s defense for giving him a chance to win it.
“We wanted it to be a toughness battle, and a fight to the finish, and that’s what we got,” said Butler reserve guard Zach Hahn, who guarded Scheyer effectively for much of the game.
In truth, the Duke offense never solved the Butler defense. The Blue Devils were stripped on drives many times, got outrebounded in the first half and never got going from the outside, where they went 5-of-17 from beyond the arc. Oddly, inbound plays were one of the best sources of offense for Duke, and at least two resulted in easy layups, among the only straightforward baskets the Blue Devils could find all night.
Nevertheless, as the clock hit zero, 61 points were enough, and after the game, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski lent some historical perspective to the effort Butler put in on defense and to the poise his team showed in attacking the Bulldogs.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be in eight national championship games, and this was a classic,” Krzyzewski said. “This was the toughest and the best one.”
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