In NCAA Division I men’s basketball, many programs have likely come to accept that if Butler’s squad makes the championship tournament, it will be a dangerous and unpredictable force.

No matter who the Bulldogs play come tourney time, they can almost always guarantee a nail-biting affair.

Butler has established its relevance with years of success on the nation’s highest stage.

But this season’s team has established something that could be considered just as important.

This team is making Butler a scary school to face in the regular season.

Imagine you’re looking at your team’s schedule for the new season. There are the games that don’t really stick out and games that make fans say, “That should be a good game.”

But there’s a third category.

“This could be trouble.”

Personally, I saw the Indiana and Gonzaga games in this light. I believed they would be fantastic contests, but as a fan I was equally as prepared for a loss as for a victory.

This season’s Bulldogs have turned Butler into one of those teams, whether they know it or not.

They have proven they can beat other teams in a variety of ways and under numerous sets of circumstances.

Not to mention they have done so in rip-your-heart-out fashion, from the opposition’s perspective.

It’s hard to imagine Marquette, Indiana and Gonzaga players feeling very good after their last-second losses to Butler.

Gonzaga coach Mark Few looked exhausted and beleaguered after Saturday’s 64-63 Butler win. He looked like a man who had pulled out all the stops, who knew his team was on the cusp of a strong victory.

Butler ripped the rug out from under Few and his Bulldogs.

Few should know this story better than most. His mid-major program has beaten the big boys and forced them to take notice: you’d better not schedule us if you want a guaranteed victory.

It all starts with Butler coach Brad Stevens.

The man must have at least one android or monk as a parent. He was the calmest individual on the Hinkle Fieldhouse floor after Saturday’s win when many coaches would have been going bonkers.

But this is how he operates his program.

He has a way to simplify everything.

“It’s not like it’s doomsday,” Stevens said of trailing by a point with 3.5 seconds left and the ball going the wrong way. “Just go play (and) figure it out.”

This attitude trickles down.Sophomore guard and recent hero Roosevelt Jones is a soft-spoken man. But his description of the game-winning play against Gonzaga oozes of Stevens-talk.

“Just making a basketball play,” he said.

Freshman guard Kellen Dunham on replacing injured leading scorer Rotnei Clarke?

“I just tried to contribute as much as I could.”

Nothing intimidates these Bulldogs. Stevens has built a mid-major monster on that idea.

It’s a simple concept that has created a complex team. And one that will provide a scare on any schedule down the road.

Published Sept. 5, 2012

This Saturday, Butler’s football team will be taking part in its first game under lights since the early-1940s.

This is an important step for Butler from an athletic standpoint.

With the university’s jump to the Atlantic 10 Conference last summer, school officials would probably like to prove that they can host athletic events under a variety of circumstances (despite the fact the football team will not be part of the A-10).

Saturday’s game could help the flexibility of the football team’s scheduling in the future as well.

However, moving some football games and, before them, some men’s and women’s soccer matches to an under-the-lights setting could also pose a potential problem for the university.

Butler attempted its first athletic triple-header last September. The football team and both soccer squads had contests in the Butler Bowl on the same day.

The triple-header was likely a new and, at times, exhausting expeience for some members of Butler’s athletics department. Running one athletic event in a given day requires a number of different operations and activities to take place in very short amounts of time.

Doing those same activities three times over the course of eight to 10 hours would likely be draining.

Accordingly, the athletics department has not scheduled three events in the Bowl on a single day this academic year.

However, two separate weekends this month will see a great amount of athletic activity in short periods of time.

The first of these is this weekend, and that schedule reads as follows:

Friday, Sept. 7
Volleyball—Butler Classic, starts 11 a.m.
Men’s soccer—Butler vs. Northern Kentucky, 7 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 8
Football—Butler vs. Franklin, 6 p.m.
Volleyball—Butler Classic, starts 6 p.m.

Sunday, Sept. 9
Men’s soccer—Butler vs. Central Arkansas, 1 p.m.

With no rest for the weary, Butler also has the following schedule assembled for Saturday, Sept. 29:

Football—Butler vs. Dayton, 1 p.m.
Women’s soccer—Butler vs. Saint Louis, 7 p.m.
Volleyball—Butler vs. Duquesne, 7 p.m.

It is great that Butler is finding opportunities for fans to take in multiple sporting events in a given day, but I see two major issues with this sort of scheduling.

The first lies in overextending and straining the athletics department staff.

I cannot speak for those within the department. I cannot say those individuals were exhausted at the conclusion of the triple-header last year, that they were unable to rise from their respective beds the next morning.

One might think that taking care of the operations and behind-the-scenes work for three athletic events in a single day—especially with one being the school’s first athletic contest under lighting since World War II—might be a bit stressful, though.

So this year, the staff gets to run that gauntlet twice in four weeks.

It may prove to be even more difficult this time around. Some teams have contests scheduled over each other.

Starting the finale of volleyball’s Butler Classic and the first night football game in more than 70 years at the same time cannot possibly benefit an athletics department staff that will have dealt with earlier volleyball and men’s soccer action less than 24 hours prior.

Slotting the women’s soccer and volleyball teams into the same starting time just hours after the conclusion of a football game is potentially problematic as well.

And then there are the fans that, on the surface, benefit from receiving the opportunity to view multiple sporting events in a given day.

There is clearly an issue with attendance at Butler’s fall athletic events. Figures are not high, and the stands of the Bowl and Hinkle Fieldhouse are nowhere near full during such events.

That is why it is difficult for me to understand how scheduling events on top of each other will fix this. Fans cannot be in two places at the same time.

Also, if a day is filled with events, the casual observer will probably only attend the first on the list. It is simply overwhelming to attend three athletic contests in one day.

Overwhelming is the key word in this discussion. If stacked scheduling is some sort of initiation into the A-10, the Butler community will have to live with being overwhelmed.

Otherwise, the school should realize that it might be taking on more than it can handle.

If any readers out there ever own a Major League Baseball team and want to make the playoffs, build your team around great pitching.

Don’t get reeled in by some guy who can hit the long ball. Be boring. Get some great pitchers.

Sure, I have grown up watching steroids era baseball and have seen hitting win titles, but the MLB is returning to a state of complete purity.

Now that the MLB is more consistently testing for more banned substances, the playing field is being leveled.

The truth is clear: pitching determines who wins and who loses.

This was clear in the 2010 regular season when pitchers won in convincing fashion. Six no-hitters were thrown, including three perfect games (if you count the one taken from Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga by an umpire).

This trend of dominant pitching has been extended into the 2010 playoffs.

The first and best example that comes to mind is Roy “Doc” Halladay.

In his postseason debut, while Philadelphia fans waved “Doctober” signs, Halladay pitched a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds and was one walk away from throwing a perfect game.

Halladay’s no-hitter is only the second in postseason history, and the first since 1956 when then-New York Yankee Don Larsen threw a perfect game against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Although the Reds have not been successful in the last decade, they were the top-ranked hitting team in 2010 and made the playoffs because of it.

However, they were no match for the Phillies’ staff in the postseason. Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt currently share the pitching roster with Halladay. They helped carry the Phillies to a 3-0 sweep of the Reds, who struck out 24 times compared to getting 11 hits in the series.

Hamels struck out nine in a five-hit complete game Sunday night.

The strong performance from the left-hander finished the sweep and allowed the Phillies to share the customary champagne in the club house.

Two-time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum is another perfect example of how dominant pitching trumps dominant hitting.

The ace of the San Francisco Giants, who last made the playoffs in 2003, threw a two-hitter in the first game of their series against the Atlanta Braves.

Lincecum had 14 strikeouts in the series opener but, more impressively, many of the strikeouts were because batters were swinging at air.

Although under 50 percent of Lincecum’s pitches actually hit the strike zone, his perfect delivery and breaking ball gave the home plate umpire an easy game to call.

The Yankees have had some impressive hitting during their sweep of the Minnesota Twins, but won because their pitching held the Twins to just six earned runs in three games.

The Yankee’s number one pitcher is C.C. Sabathia, who won the 2007 American League Cy Young Award as a member of the Cleveland Indians. He pitched six innings in Game 1 to start the Yankees’ postseason momentum.

Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes kept the train rolling in the next two games.

Pettitte pitched a strong seven innings in the series’ second game, and Hughes threw seven scoreless innings with six strikeouts to clinch the series.

Plus, Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer since Dennis Eckersley, isn’t a bad weapon to have in your bullpen.

History shows pitching wins.

Many great playoff teams of the past had great pitchers.

Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax pitched during the 1950s and 1960s and played on four Dodgers’ World Series teams while picking up three National League Cy Young awards along the way. Furthermore, Koufax led the NL in wins, strikeouts and earned run average for three different seasons.

Don Drysdale, who was a nine-time All-Star and the 1962 NL Cy Young winner, was a teammate of Koufax and helped the Dodgers win the World Series three times.

Denny McClain won 31 games for the Detroit Tigers in 1968, earning him one of his two AL Cy Young awards before the Tigers took the World Series title that year.

Where there is a World Series title, there is undoubtedly strong pitching.

The Twins, who have no ace and were unable hold home field advantage because of it, were the best example of this as the Yankee bats made quick work of mediocre pitching.

The Tampa Bay Rays show how having a bad pitching rotation can cause a great team to lose as well.

After losing their series opener to the Texas Rangers, the Rays sent James Shields to the mound to start Game 2.

Shields finished the regular season with 15 losses and on a three-game losing streak, so no crystal ball was necessary to predict the future.

Shields struck out two but gave up four hits and four earned runs before being pulled out in the fifth inning.

The Rays forced a fifth game after wins from Matt Garza and Wade Davis, but the 0-2 series deficit was too much for the AL East champions to overcome.

The Rays lost the deciding game after Game One loser David Price gave up eight hits and three earned runs in six innings of unimpressive work.

Pitching has always been the most important part of the game. While a dedicated baseball fan knows that, the casual fan has been misled by the steroids era—until it ended in 2010.