Who is cinderella?

This year’s field of 65 has a few candidates for the cinderella title, although some have gone to the wayside in the Sweet Sixteen and more may have followed in Friday night’s action.

Cornell, of the Ivy League, fell victim to No. 1 seed Kentucky on Thursday night. Washington, an 11 seed from the PAC 10, lost to No. 2 seed West Virginia of the powerful Big East, which by the way, has only one team in the Elite Eight.

St. Mary’s, Calif., took on No. 3 seed Baylor of the Big 12 Friday night. And by the way, Northern Iowa took on Michigan State from the Big 10.

That leaves Butler, from Indianapolis, Ind. Butler, the Horizon League champs, may not fill the true mold for Cinderella because the Bulldogs were seeded No. 5, not a low seed. But how many people could tell you that Butler went 16-0 in its conference and the field house on the Butler campus was used to film the movie “Hoosiers?”

I love Gordon Hayward, just a sophomore, and his team.

That brings us to Kansas State, a No. 2 seed, that played in maybe the best game of the season Thursday night in a double overtime win against Xavier at Salt Lake City.

K-State will be vying for its first Final Four trip since 1964 when the Wildcats and Bulldogs meet this afternoon. Somebody even might call KSU a cinderella.

As a die-hard Kansas fan, the luster came off a little bit for the tournament in the second round, but it shined up some during the K-State game.

You know, the Jayhawk Nation is spoiled, and we just celebrated a national title two years ago. That doesn’t just happen, there are a lot of factors that go into that special piece of the pie.

KU was 33-3 this season and nobody can complain about that.

Now, Kansas State is raising the state’s banner high and we are proud of the Wildcats’ efforts, too.

— Stu Butcher

executive editor