Shawn Vanzant sat in the corner of the Butler locker room, sobbing, his teammates said, at an almost uncontrollable level. Next to him was Matt Howard, a towel draped over his head, the tears coming just as hard. Together, the two seniors had shot 3 for 23, an absolutely abysmal, crushing performance in the biggest game of their lives.

Connecticut was outside clipping the national championship nets. In here it was just hell, the aftermath of a great team gone bad – 12-of-64 shooting, a record-low 18.8 percent from the floor, a measly 41 total points, the lowest since the shot clock was invented.

Vanzant thought it was his fault. Howard felt no better.

And that’s when Ronald Nored, eyes red and tear-filled as well, noticed his teammates, got up, crossed the locker room and reminded everyone what this entire pursuit is about.

He pulled Shawn Vanzant up off his stool and hugged his friend, physically and emotionally attempting to lift him out of his depression.

After a few seconds, Nored stepped over to Howard and did the same. And soon enough, his teammates followed. One after the other, from the freshmen to the managers, from the benchwarmers to the starters, every last Butler Bulldog was taking a moment to remind each other, particularly those bottomed-out seniors, that this was about a lot more than some basketball game.

“It [was] hard for me to watch; it’s hard for me to talk about,” coach Brad Stevens said of the scene, his voice catching and his eyes watering behind his glasses.

“But it’s the best part of the story.”

The story of Butler, the one that’s captured underdog hearts for two consecutive NCAA tournaments, was always about a group finding a way to be better than its individual parts. The Bulldogs were a family, they said. They were a brotherhood, they reminded. They believed they could reach back-to-back NCAA title games when there was no logical reason to think such a thing was possible.

This is what all kinds of teams say, of course. And it’s easy to be a family when the shots are falling and victories are piling up and you’re shocking the world night after night. It’s another when you take the grandest stage in college basketball and proceed to experience a failure of historic proportions.

Editor’s Note: After you finish reading the entire story (link below), if you have the thought that this young man must be a Christian, you’d be absolutely correct. Here is the background on this young man from a great ESPN writer

Read more (please!): http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=dw-wetzel_final_four_butler_goes_down_its_way_040511