Brad Stevens: We’re not Dead Yet
(Brad) Stevens, Butler’s analytical coach, didn’t build one of the most improbable success stories in college basketball history on smarts alone. He also fostered a culture of ferocious competitiveness that helped the Bulldogs reach consecutive national title games, shocking power programs such as Syracuse, Michigan State, Pittsburgh, Wisconsin and Florida along the way. That run was built as much on desperate clawing for loose balls as it was executing cerebral game plans.
So the cutthroat part of Stevens relished the challenge when the media started shoveling dirt on the struggling 2011-12 Butler team. This month alone, there was a USA Today headline reading, “At Butler, Glass Slipper Cracks,” and one in The New York Times that said, “For Butler, The Road Back Is Bumpy.”
That has prompted this line from Stevens: “Don’t write our obituary until we’re dead.”
