Except the Butler Bulldogs players are and will forever be heroes, while the Hoyas of the Patrick Ewing years – oh, and he did stay four years, Digger – are still perceived as "thugs."

In all honesty, it was a dirty game, typified by Matt Howard's brutally and disgustingly thuggish and violent moving screen that allowed Hayward to get his heave into the air. His lack of respect for his opposition and his disregard for the basic rules of the game were on display the entirety of the affair, but no more apparent than on that final pick.

But it would have been an abject travesty if The Little Team That Could —- Foul. was allowed to win the championship game.

And though Butler starts three Black players, you would never know it from the descriptions of the game provided by both White and Black journalists and television talking heads across the country.

Think this wasn't a, win won for John Wayne, the Gipper, the Marlboro Man, and White suburbia," moment?