LEXINGTON, Ky. -- There was no Rotnei Clarke Maui Miracle this time.

Just a desperate, off-balance heave by Butler center Andrew Smith that nearly broke the backboard.

Cancel the NCAA tournament.

It cannot continue, not without Butler in its usual, time-honored spot in the Sweet Sixteen.

Watch: Buzzer-beater attempt goes bad

Seriously, how can this happen? How can sixth-seed Butler be going home after a 74-72 loss to No. 3 seed Marquette? Butler has been there four of the last six years. They are one of the tournament's eternal verities. They belong there, just as surely as Dick Vitale belongs at a microphone.

But after a clinical first half, during which Clarke scored 18 points and the Bulldogs took an eight-point lead, Marquette's speed and quickness took over. It's a difficult thing, forcing Butler to speed up, but Marquette, using mass substitutions and pressure, took the Bulldogs out of everything they wanted offensively.

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It was very un-Butler-like, the sloppy ball handling, the 15 turnovers leading to 19 points, the rushed shots.

With 2.4 seconds left, Butler got a break, or better yet, made a break. The ball went out of bounds off a Marquette player, leaving the Bulldogs with one more chance trailing by two points. Surely, there would be another Maui miracle or something similar. Surely, Butler would figure out a way to score, maybe even hit the game winner.

Instead, it was an unholy mess.

Smith on the perimeter?

Not a chance.

Even the smartest teams can get confused.

"They had mixed zone and man (on sideline out-of-bounds plays) all game," Stevens said. "They switched their match-ups and I think our guys mistook that for a zone. We probably didn't have guys in the right spots ... I need to do a better job of simplifying it for them out of a timeout. We didn't get as good a look as I had hoped.

"That one will eat at me for a while."

Who were those guys in the second half?

Even the even-tempered Stevens got ruffled, dropping to both knees after an apparent Roosevelt Jones 3-point play was waved off by the officials.

"I was told one of our players touched the rim, so they waved it off," Stevens said later. "They then said they confirmed it with the video, so I believe them."

What happened?

Marquette happened.

After forging an opening-day miracle to beat Davidson at the buzzer, the Golden Eagles took over the game in the second half. Marquette coach Buzz Williams did a masterful job, substituting liberally, keeping his guys fresh, pressuring Butler into doing things they don't like to do. They turned the Bulldogs into a driving team.

Most importantly, they held Clarke to just six points in the second half and didn't score in the final 15 minutes.

Ultimately, Stevens took this team about as far as they were going to go. Again, there are no NBA players on this roster. And despite the mythology that's been built around Butler, this is a team without much NCAA tournament experience. Five of the top seven players on the roster have little or no experience in this spot.

Yes, the officiating was shoddy. How did they wave off Jones' potential 3-point play? How did Kameron Woods get called for an over-the-back call on a rebound when he simply skied over a Marquette player?

But again, this was about as far as they were supposed to go.

The Bulldogs put on the kind of first-half clinic we've become accustomed to seeing in this tournament.

Marquette tried to speed them up, bringing token pressure on the ball-handler up the floor, but Butler couldn't be sped up.


Offensively, it was all about Clarke. He's Ole Miss' Marshall Henderson without the histrionics and the baggage, willing to shoot from everywhere at any time. Clarke, who Stevens feared would break the backboard with his nerve-wracked first shot against Bucknell, took over this game early, scoring 18 of Butler's 35 first-half points.

Butler hit 7-of-13 from 3 and just 4-of-16 from 2. Go figure.

Defensively, the Dogs packed it into the paint, willing to let a 30% 3-point shooting team try to score from the perimeter. Marquette, a team they're going to see plenty of in years to come in the reconstituted Big East, is all about the power game, getting the big bodies near the basket.

The Golden Eagles shot just 26% in the first half. And Butler did an especially good job in the interior of defending without fouling.

The second half, everything changed. There were turnovers. There were rushed shots. The pressure came to bear. And Clarke never got loose as the Eagles clearly learned their lesson. He tried to reprise the Maui miracle late in the game with a deep bomb from way outside, but the shot fell haplessly, hopelessly short and wide.

"The difference in the game was the pressure they put on us in the second half," Stevens said.

Cancel the tournament.

Butler is going home.

Bob Kravitz also writes for The Indianapolis Star