Butler prepares for Sweet 16

INDIANAPOLIS – Joel Cornette was a busy man the last time Butler reached the NCAA’s regional semifinals. Maybe too busy.\nAfter leading the Bulldogs past Mississippi State and Louisville in the 2003 tournament, the then-senior spent the next week selling the school to the media and tickets to the game in Albany, N.Y.\nThey don’t intend to get sidetracked that way this week.\n“When we got back on campus, the students wanted to celebrate, and there was the media circus and you’re trying to catch up with your school work,” said Cornette, now the Bulldogs coordinator of basketball operations. “You have ticket requests and everything. What we learned was that you’ve got to find a way to strike the right balance with all of that.”\nThe lessons from four years ago still linger with coach Todd Lickliter.\nHe admits now that having two senior starters, Cornette and Darnell Archey, camped out at a folding table in the Hinkle Fieldhouse lobby may not have been the best way to prepare for Oklahoma. Nor was setting aside so much time for interviews.\nBut when you’re a small school playing on the second weekend of the NCAA’s biggest stage, it’s tough to say no.\nThe Bulldogs believe the experience will make them better prepared for Friday night’s showdown with defending national champion Florida.\n“I know we won’t have that deal,” Lickliter said when asked about players selling tickets. “I think the peripheral stuff will be taken care of by the sports staff and that will help. The only thing I really remember was what that sting was like, losing to Oklahoma.”\nWhat’s changed in four years?\nPlenty.\nThe Bulldogs have already set a school record for victories, were ranked for 16 straight weeks and took advantage of earning the highest tourney seed in school history, a No. 5 in the Midwest Region.\nThey’ve proven they can play with some of the nation’s best teams, having won five games against “power conference” schools – all of which made the NCAA tournament. They’re also 8-0 on neutral courts this season and are confident they can continue winning.\nThe expectations are different, too.\nIn ‘03, two NCAA wins were a major accomplishment for a program that had won only three previous tournament games, including a victory in a third-place game in the 1962 regionals.\nYes, the Bulldogs still embrace their small-school image, but they’ve demonstrated they will not be awe-struck. Two November wins in New York City capped their improbable run to the NIT Season Tip-Off championship.\nSo Butler isn’t satisfied just hanging around.\n“We’ll get back to work, that’s not a problem,” junior guard A.J. Graves said. “We’ve experienced success, and we’ll put this in its place, too. We did that in the Preseason NIT, and we want to do more.”\nOff the court, Butler has other advantages.\nClasswork won’t be an issue since the school was on spring break last week when the Bulldogs were beating Old Dominion and Maryland.\nThey won’t necessarily be the central focus, either, since seventh-seeded UNLV is the lowest-seeded team remaining and Butler is one of four teams left that does not play in a “power” conference. The others are Southern Illinois, UNLV and Memphis.\nLogistics could help, too. St. Louis is about a four-hour road trip from Indianapolis, meaning the Bulldogs could bring a larger contingent of fans than it did in Albany four years ago.