Butler and Gonzaga. Gonzaga and Butler.
The two have been linked throughout the 2000s as small schools meeting, and beating, the behemoths of college basketball.
Both have resisted the mid-major label, a convenient way to describe those without big-time football but a meaningless designation in basketball.
The 2006 NIT Season Tip-Off was once characterized as Butler’s first Final Four by former coach Todd Lickliter. That has some validity. Then-No. 23 Gonzaga beat No. 2 North Carolina 82-74 in one semifinal, and unranked Butler beat No. 22 Tennessee 56-44 in the other.
“Butler and Gonzaga in the finals, I think it’s good,” North Carolina coach Roy Williams said at the time.