Butler wary of streaking Racers

SAN JOSE (WISH) - The field of 65 is getting whittled away as the opening round of the NCAA tournament came to a close Friday night. Butler's moving on thanks to a big win over UTEP. Waiting for the Bulldogs on Saturday: upset-minded Murray State.

On Thursday, Danero Thomas reminded college basketball fans everywhere why the month of March is so mad. The Racers' senior drained a fade-away buzzer beater to give No. 13 Murray State an upset victory over No. 4 Vanderbilt, as well as the program’s first NCAA tournament win in 22 years.

“It was a dream shot you know I never thought to this day that I would ever hit a shot like that," said Thomas. "But it happened so I just gotta take it and run with it.”

Now, Thomas and his teammates are hoping to run that momentum right into the Sweet 16.

"It boosts us up a lot," said Murray State's starting center Tony Easley. "Before that I think we were kind of like ok, maybe we’ve got this...but now I think we know what we need to do. We got our jitters out basically.”

“I’m sure that they’re planning on riding that momentum," said Butler junior forward Matt Howard. "But you can say the same for the way we won [over UTEP]. Anytime you win a game in the Tournament you’re going to have some confidence that will carry over.”

“[Murray State] is big-time," said Butler head coach Brad Stevens. "I told our guys I haven’t seen many better college basketball teams. With all due respect to the teams we play they’re up there at the very top. People don’t know much about them because of the league they play in and that’s a familiar story to us.”

The Horizon league may be overlooked by the media during the regular season, but a win here Saturday over Murray State will have the Bulldogs back in the national spotlight, and back in Sweet 16 for the second time in three years.

Tip time is set for 3:20p.m.on WISH-TV.