Ailing mom sees Butler’s Vanzant play in NCAA title game in person

Ailing mom sees son play in title game

INDIANAPOLIS — Lisa Litton was too excited to sit in her assigned seat Monday night.

So she stood in front of her seat, smiling and covering her mouth with her hands in disbelief that she was finally here, about to watch Shawn Vanzant, a junior guard for Butler, in person.

The woman who decided to give Vanzant a helping hand four years ago had never been able to see him play a college game because she was too sick to travel.

“It’s just wonderful, I’m so proud,” she said, rocking back and forth on her feet.

The connection between Litton’s family and Vanzant goes back to high school, when her son, Zach, and Vanzant played basketball at the same school in Tampa, Fla.

The two boys grew so close that Vanzant’s coach, Tommy Tonelli, said Vanzant became a kind of mentor for Litton’s son. So when Vanzant needed a place to stay after his father became ill and his brother was arrested, he told Tonelli that he was probably going to have to move to Cleveland.

Lisa Litton never gave him the option. She took in Vanzant, who still calls them mom and pops.

“It’s like I said, she was his guardian angel,” Tonelli said. “It was like trying to tame a wild colt because he could just run. But then he had to abide by the family rules and she is a drill sergeant. Butler was the perfect place for him.”

Litton wanted to visit Vanzant long before this, the final game of his junior season, but after being diagnosed with lupus and breast cancer, she had been advised to limit her travel.

Vanzant even told her to stay home until her youngest son, 14-year-old Chase, finished playing his AAU tournament over the weekend.

But after the Bulldogs beat Michigan State 52-50 in Saturday’s semifinal, it would have taken more than a wild colt to keep her from coming to Indianapolis and seeing the national championship game.

“Oh no, she was coming,” her husband, Jeff, said.

In fact, the entire family of five and Vanzant’s high school coach all made the trip though they were split up in inside Lucas Oil Stadium. Lisa, Jeff, Zach and Tonelli sat together, opposite the Butler bench. Chase and Josh, Litton’s other two sons, were seated behind Butler’s bench.

“The doctor gave me some medicine and told me to take it easy, then he laughed because he knows me,” she said. “I really didn’t care what might happen, I was coming no matter what.”

Less than 12 hours before playing for the national championship, some of Butler’s players were back in the classroom.

The first Final Four team to play in its hometown since UCLA in 1972 spent all week following the norms — 6:30 a.m. practices, regular classwork, even shuttling players 5.6 miles from the team’s downtown hotel to campus last week and again on Monday.

It wasn’t a distraction to the players.

“I have four classes tomorrow,” Gordon Hayward said Sunday. “I don’t know what we’ll do about that, but we’ll try to keep things normal and if he (coach Brad Stevens) wants us to go, we’ll go.”

They did.

Team spokesman Jim McGrath told to The Associated Press that some players went to morning classes, then returned downtown for a short film session shortly after noon. They went through a one-hour shootaround inside Lucas Oil Stadium at 1 p.m., and then stayed downtown to get ready for the game at 9:21 p.m.

Just another typical day in the life of a Butler basketball player.

On Tuesday, the basketball players, like the rest of the students, won’t have to worry about setting the alarm clock. University president Bobby Fong announced at a downtown pep rally that all classes would be canceled.

“We’re not crazy,” Fong told the crowd.

TICKET DEALS: Getting the hometown Butler Bulldogs has been a boon to ticket brokers around Indianapolis.

While some sales in the upper levels of Lucas Oil Stadium were a bit slow an hour before Monday’s title game — most people wanted to trade up — lower level seats were moving quickly.

Scalpers were getting $150-$200 for lower-level seats, while others were fetching $50-75 a seat. Sales were delayed by a thunderstorm two hours before tipoff, but picked up when the weather cleared.

“Butler being here has made it halfway decent,” said Kenneth Matthews, who bought an umbrella while waiting for the rain.

Some of the fans weren’t too thrilled about the prices.

Kyle Duda of Joliet, Ill., came to Indianapolis to hang with friends. He considered going to the game until he found that scalpers started charging a minimum of $200, so he headed to Hinkle Fieldhouse on the Butler campus to watch on big-screen TVs.

Chris Young, a Butler junior from Indianapolis, said ticket prices were too high.

“When it got to $275 for 600-level seats, I decided I’d rather see it here,” Young said at Hinkle.

Linda Gude, of Indianapolis, said she ran into $90 tickets and $200 from scalpers.

“They were too expensive,” Gude said. “I decided to come here and join the crowd instead.”

CAMERON CELEBRATION: Win or lose, Duke was planning to celebrate its season Tuesday back at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C.

Team officials on Monday announced plans to open their celebrated arena at noon for a free 1 p.m. rally.

The Blue Devils were making their first appearance in the title game since 2001, when they won their third championship.

PIONEER PRIDE: The Pioneer League was hoping its football co-champions could win a pair of postseason basketball tournaments.

The conference sponsors non-scholarship football at the FCS level. The Flyers and Bulldogs shared the 2009 Pioneer League football title with 7-1 conference records.

In addition to Butler’s appearance in the men’s basketball championship game, Dayton won the NIT with a win against North Carolina in New York.

GENERAL GREIVIS: Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez has won the Bob Cousy Award as the nation’s top point guard.

Vasquez, the Atlantic Coast Conference’s player of the year, averaged nearly 20 points, six assists and 4.5 rebounds per game. The affable, charismatic native Venezuelan led the Terrapins to a 24-9 record, a share of the ACC’s regular-season title and a berth in the NCAA tournament.

He ended his career as the second-leading scorer in Maryland history with 2,171 points, and is the only player in ACC history with at least 2,000 points, 700 assists and 600 rebounds.

“I want to be just like (Cousy), a winner, not only on the court but off the court,” said Vasquez, who was introduced by Hall of Famer Bill Walton.

HOMETOWN TURNOUT: The NCAA said 70,930 fans attended Monday’s national championship game between hometown favorite Butler and Duke at Lucas Oil Stadium, down slightly from last year’s turnout in Detroit.

A year ago, North Carolina beat Michigan State in front of a championship-game record crowd of 72,922 at Ford Field in Detroit.

On Saturday night, 71,298 fans attended the Final Four games between Butler-Michigan State and Duke-West Virginia. That number trailed only the 72,456 who turned out last year for the semifinals.

CLOSE CALL: The Duke-Butler game produced the smallest victory margin in an NCAA title game in two decades. Not since Michigan defeated Seton Hall 80-79 in 1989 had a runner-up come this close to walking away with the big trophy.

But that wasn’t good enough for the Bulldogs.

“The defense forced me into a tough shot. I was trying to go to the basket and they forced me into a fadeaway,” Gordon Hayward said, referring to a potentially go-ahead shot he missed from the baseline with about 4 seconds left. “I thought it was in. It was close, but close doesn’t cut it.”

Hayward had another chance at the buzzer when he took a shot near half-court, which hit the backboard and front of the rim before falling out.

It left the Bulldogs dazed.

“All you can ask for as a team is a shot and we had two shots,” Butler guard Zach Hahn said. “Both were right there.”

AP Sports Writers Cliff Brunt, Nancy Armour, John Marshall and Joedy McCreary contributed to this report.