HOUSTON — Only a few months before the euphoria of the shot that halted Florida Atlantic’s improbable run and sent San Diego State to the national title game, Lamont Butler experienced a moment of spirit-crushing devastation.
One moment, San Diego State had a seemingly insurmountable four-point lead over the nation’s ninth-ranked team at the Maui Invitational. Then Butler committed an inadvertent foul and a costly turnover in the span of six seconds to fuel a last-gasp Arkansas comeback.
“People don’t understand how hard Lamont took that loss,” his father Lamont Butler Sr.