2011 March Madness: Butler Bulldogs Last Year's Underdogs

Read More: Va. Commonwealth Rams, Butler Bulldogs

The Butler Bulldogs, last year's March Madness darlings and 2011 NCAA Tournament No. 8 seed, have done everything right as they enter the Final Four portion of their bracket on April 2. No matter—whatever they'd done this season, short of curing infant rubella, wouldn't have been quite enough to get them past the VCU Rams on casual-basketball-watching America's list of this year's underdogs. 

So it's a good thing that they've already practiced being humble. It has to be tough for the Butler players—they must want so badly, like every athlete in the history of athletics, to say that nobody believed in them, that they were doubted all the way but they never doubted themselves, and unlike 99% of those athletes it would actually be true. Just not quite as true as it is for their Final Four opponents out of, of all places, Virginia Commonwealth, home of the "We Were Doubted All The Way But We Never Doubted Ourselves Rams". 

"You start to get big-headed in any way and you could be brought down very easily," notes one of Butler's well-adjusted basketball players. Unfortunately for them, that's the role they're supposed to be playing in this movie...