INDIANAPOLIS — The image will likely stick with West Virginia basketball fans for decades to come. No matter how hard they try to forget it.
With 8:59 left in the Mountaineers’ eventual 78-57 loss to Duke in Saturday night’s Final Four semifinal game, WVU senior forward Da’Sean Butler fell to the Lucas Oil Stadium court, clutching his left knee and writhing in pain after a collision with the Blue Devils’ Brian Zoubek.
As if the situation couldn’t get any worse, Butler had also just been whistled for a charge, which was his fourth foul.
After taking a few seconds to soak all this misery in, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins screamed at the officials, “Duke doesn’t foul?”
Then he went to his knees, cradling Butler’s head in his hands as the player screamed in pain.
“He just told me not to worry about it, that it would be fine,” said Butler, who was insistent after the game that it was only a sprain. “I was just so scared. I’d never hurt myself before.”
Unfortunately, an MRI taken Sunday at St. Vincent Sports Performance revealed that Butler couldn’t have been hurt much worse. He has a torn ACL, two bone bruises and a sprained medial collateral ligament. Surgery will be required.
“When I went out there, it was more about how he felt he’d let the team down than about the injury,” said Huggins, West Virginia alum. “And that’s Da’Sean. He’s got such a great heart.”
The Mountaineers all had heart this season in winning the Big East Tournament, knocking out top-seeded Kentucky in the East Regional final to reach the school’s first Final Four since 1959 and finishing with a 31-7 record.
But on Saturday night they had no answer for Duke’s big three of Jon Scheyer (23 points, 6 assists), Kyle Singler (21 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists) and Nolan Smith (19 points, 6 assists).
“We ran into a better team and they got the best of us today,” said junior point guard Joe Mazzulla. “Their big three stepped up and you have to give all of the credit to them. Looking at how we came along through the course of the year and how close we got, to go down the way we did, I can’t explain it. You can’t really put into words how tough this is.”
Yet it was easy for Huggins to put into words how much the program will miss the senior Butler.
“If you can be too good a guy, he’s too good a guy,” said the coach, who then gave an example of Butler’s goodness.
“We didn’t practice (last) Monday, but (Da’Sean) certainly had a lot of media obligations. And he did that. But we had a lady who had a heart attack during the second half of the Kentucky game, but wouldn’t leave her house until the game was over. Da’Sean found out about it.
“After doing media stuff pretty much all day, he went to the hospital and spent an hour with that lady, talking to her and thanking her for how much her support means to him. I mean, you just don’t find guys like that very often.”