The No. 13 ranked Butler Bulldogs have appeared in five NCAA tournaments since 2000 and reached the regional semifinals twice in the last six years. Over the past three seasons, they've won more games than any other Division I school in Indiana and have been ranked for 40 weeks since 2006.
This season, Butler's starting lineup features three freshmen and a sophomore and is led by "he nation's third-youngest coach, 32-year-old Brad Stevens.
And guess what? They are winners of 19 of their first 20 games.
Butler's old-school strategy favors teamwork over experience. Players share the basketball, take pride in defending opponents, prefer crediting teammates to gloating about their own accomplishments and they don't deviate from the system. Simply put, it's all about desire, determination and execution.
Part of Butler's recipe for success is that the team's "coaches look for distinctive traits in recruits — like maturity and teamwork — that other schools often overlook. At Butler, they're essential.
"We spend a lot of time talking to their high school coaches and the coaches around them. That gives you better insight into them," Coach Stevens said. "But I think if you watched how they interacted with their teammates on and off the court, you'd see we really didn't have to do a lot of research. It starts with the makeup of the kids on this team — their selflessness and their belief in being a great teammate."
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