The flip side of expectations

Luke Winn:

They’re at risk of doing what Stephen Curry and Davidson did in 2008-09, beginning the season in the Top 25 and then missing out on the dance. Butler’s overinflated preseason ranking was the fault of us, the pundits, who got too carried away and put them in the top 10, but Gordon Hayward & Co. are still good enough -- in the top 30-35 teams nationally -- to belong in the NCAA tournament field. If they don’t make it, that’s their fault.

I found myself wondering in Indianapolis if those kids from Butler were going to have fun this year. Still wondering.

The wanna watch factor

Luke Winn:

There is something to be said for the fact that I’ve been to Purdue-Oklahoma, UNC-Wake Forest and UConn-Louisville this season -- all huge games between top 10 teams -- and I was more hyped to cover West Virginia-Davidson than I was for any of those. Steph Curry was the reason for that.

Curry mania

Luke Winn: Stephen Curry appears to be the only college basketball player capable of beating the recession.

Manifesto

Worth noting: “It’s something that said ‘let’s get better.’ We just felt as a team that we did do some really good things, but there was room for improvement,” Lovedale says. “So we sat together and came up with something that sort of talked about what we felt we needed to do as a team, where we could improve. Not just improve ourselves, but live our lives as role models for little kids who look up to us in the community.”