Ask anyone on Butler about Matt Howard and you'll walk away thinking there was one small flaw with the way he corralled a crucial free-throw miss, drew attention to Nasir Robinson's reach-in and calmly sank the subsequent foul shot to beat No. 1 seed Pitt.
Howard did it all himself, creating a rare instance where the humble senior couldn't immediately credit someone else.
Unlike last Thursday, when frontcourt partner Andrew Smith helped create the mayhem that led to Howard's uncontested putback at the buzzer that took out Old Dominion, Saturday's three-part play was a solo act. It also cast a fitting spotlight on Howard, who two years after being the best player on a No. 9 seed Butler squad, has re-emerged as the program's unwitting star.
"Matt's been consistent his whole career. He's been a guy of few words, but he shows it a lot with his leadership through his actions," sophomore guard Chase Stigall said after Saturday's pulsating 71-70 win over the Panthers. "A lot of people think this was a great thing Matt did tonight, but he does it every day. He does it in practice, he does it in games."
That kind of constant, quiet leadership can get overlooked when what the public sees is a changing of the guard. Few recall that Howard was the Horizon League Player of the Year in 2009, leading a 26-5 Butler team into the NCAAs as the top scorer and rebounder. The more lasting image is last season's Howard, relegated to a distant third offensive option by the star turns of then-sophomores Gordon Hayward and Shelvin Mack as the Bulldogs fell inches short of a national title. Howard was memorable more for his general awkwardness, a reckless propensity for fouling and the concussion that left him a game-time decision for the title game against Duke.
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