MEMPHIS, Tennessee- The Bulldogs practiced at Fed Ex Forum Thursday afternoon for their match up with the 1 seeded UNC Tar Heels. Though Butler is viewed as the "underdog" among the blueboods, when you look at the dogs resume, there's no reason to believe that they can't compete with the elite.
Butler has beaten multiple top tier teams this season. Chris Holtmann and his team beat Villanova twice, once at Hinkle and once at the Pavilion. They notched an impressive win over Arizona as well as Indiana when the Hoosiers were ranked.
But this underdog role is nothing knew for the dogs.
"Our whole season we've been underdogs. We were picked 6th to finish in our conference but we finished second," Tyler Lewis said in the lockeroom folllowing practice.
"This whole seasons we've been counted out, even in a lot of games that we won. No one even imagined us being in those games. We know we can beat any team in the country so hopefully we can go out there and play well."
That confidence is carried throughout the lockeroom, despite the fact that Butler usually isn't mentioned in the same breath as Kentucky, UNC and UCLA outside of the lockeroom.
"We hear it," senior Andrew Chrabascz said of the talk around the south regional in Memphis. "But we're a self motivated group. We've been told stuff like this all year. It's obviously a little motivation but at the same time we've earned our right to be here and we're excited to compete against these types of teams."
The Bulldogs will attempt to dispel that talk Friday night at 7:09 p.m. on CBS4.