Butler's Bulldog Mascot Barfs On Court, Still Rules

Of all the things that separate college basketball players from their professional counterparts, poise is the one that's most palpable in March. These are college-age people, still kids in most every meaningful way, placed under very hot lights and a great deal of pressure in games that matter more, to more people, than any they've played before. Humans react to this sort of stress overage in ways that you remember from things like middle school dances and watching Don Lemon try to interview people on CNN. There's shortness of breath and a certain tightening in the gut; you get turned around; your body sweats and your mind chases itself in progressively tighter circles. In short, the more stressed we become, the more like a bulldog we become.

It is not easy being a bulldog, given the challenges of constant breathing difficulties and a tongue that only sort of fits in your mouth and the other challenges inherent to waddling around in a silly tubular body. For Blue III, the bulldog mascot of the Butler Bulldogs—the four-legged one, not the student sweating in a suit—the excitement of March and the challenges of being a bulldog got to be too much. A few minutes before the start of Butler's Big East quarterfinal match-up against on Xavier on Thursday, Blue posted up in the paint and yarfed.

Bulter's mascot just vomited on the court. Hahaha! pic.twitter.com/vy4WCe9poR
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 13, 2015

Matt Norlander, the indispensable college basketball writer for CBS Sports, has absolutely owned the huge Blue Barfs At Madison Square Garden story, and confirmed in a conversation with Blue III's owner and handler that Blue was fine, and just a little too caught up in the moment. (Seriously, read what Norlander wrote on it: it is the most comprehensive and endearing thing that could possibly be written about a dog barfing on a basketball court.)

After rehydrating and taking a moment to chill out to the extent possible, Blue III was back on the sidelines and back at work. Which is to say back to being a bulldog. Which is to say he spent the rest of the game, which Butler ultimately lost 67-61, doing this:

So business as usual, then, for March basketball, which makes overexcited bulldogs of us all.