loss to Duke in the national championship game ended Butler’s Cinderella run, but to keen observers of the team, the improbable path to the pinnacle of March Madness was no surprise.

In the second round of the tourney, Butler, the West region’s fifth seed, was favored against another mid-major school, 13th-seeded Murray State. The game was a seesaw, as Butler’s scoring run gave it an eight-point lead with six minutes to play. Still, Murray State fought back and led after an offensive run of their own. In the end, Butler owned the final two and a half minutes of play, outscoring Murray State 7-2 to close out a 54-52 victory.

Butler pulled out three more razor-thin wins — beating Syracuse by four points, Kansas State by seven, and Michigan State by two — to advance to the national championship game against top-ranked Duke, which only won 61-59 after the Bulldogs missed a three-pointer at the buzzer that would have sent the state of Indiana into endless delirium.

The leader of Butler’s resurgence is Brad Stevens, the baby-faced 34-year-old coach who stresses the tenets of conditioning and fitness above all others as the way for a smaller program like his to compete with traditional college basketball powers. As Stevens was preparing for the start of fall practices last week, Wired.com caught up with him by phone to see how the Bulldogs pulled off such a shocking run of success last year, the role fitness and conditioning played, and how his team might shock the hoops world (again).

Wired.com: Is there a “Butler approach” to player fitness and training?

Brad Stevens: I don’t know that we do it any different than most. Our strength coach [Ryan Galloy] does a wonderful job of tailoring a basketball-specific plan to each player, according to where they are in our strength and conditioning process. After that, we’re making sure we’re supervising them, giving them the right amount of individual attention.

Certainly, I want our guys to be bigger, stronger, and faster. Our offseason lifting and conditioning is geared toward being ready to practice on October 15, and improving as a person and a player. Gaining strength, taking care of yourself, and prioritizing your growth as a person are important parts of that.

Wired.com: How does the work you’ve done help when you’re up against a larger school with bigger, stronger players?

Stevens: I didn’t think we were any less physical or strong than any of those teams. Certainly we were a little bit smaller height-wise and weight-wise for a few of them. But I thought we had a team with good strength, good athleticism, and superb conditioning. And I think it was reflected in the way that we played in the tournament. We never felt at the end of a game that we were winded. We were always getting stronger and playing better.

Wired.com: It seemed that, in those contests, your guys had more in the tank late in games and would dominate as the game clock wound down.

Stevens: I don’t know if that’s a mental resolve, an inner resolve, or if that’s physical conditioning. There was something. They certainly stayed together and played throughout the whole 40 minutes.

We prioritize strength during the season, and we probably back off in the weight room less than others.

Wired.com: How did you get your players to buy in to the idea that they could prepare with this high level of conditioning, that they could do all this work and create a fitness and strength advantage, and that it would pay off in the long run?

Stevens: We always talk about how our players should always be in close-to-your-best shape. As a highly conditioned college athlete, they should never be out of shape, and they need to take that seriously.

In the off-season, when we’re not allowed to monitor things and we’re not allowed to be there, we tell them that they still need to take responsibility for being a student-athlete. That means, very seriously, doing [fitness and strength] to the best of their abilities.

We don’t spend a lot time talking about conditioning in the preseason. We don’t spend a lot of time doing conditioning in the preseason. We just spend a lot of time trying to get better.

Wired.com: Is there a psychological dimension to what goes on between you and your players? Do you have to get your players’ heads individually and collectively in the right place?

Stevens: I don’t think you get to the point where last year’s team got without having guys all in, not only in conditioning but in every facet of the program. They understand it’s important, and they work at it the way championship programs try to work at it.

Wired.com: Looking ahead to this season, what’s different from a year ago? Has anything changed in terms of fitness and training?

Stevens: We’re working more closely with a dietitian and a nutritionist to help us manage that area and help us perform better in some of the controllable aspects. I think what we do is solid. Our guys believe in it, from the weights to the on-court conditioning. I think we can always get better at taking care of our bodies, and that’s something I hope our guys take with them long after they leave this program.

Wired.com: I’ve heard you’re analytical, that you measure and model constantly. How does strength and fitness factor into that?

Stevens: We do all kind of different things that our strength coach comes up with that I try to put numbers around. It can be gauging recovery time in between runs or calculating what the slippage should be between the first and the fourth run. It could also be having a feel for what somebody who bench presses 185 pounds 10 times should do after two hard months in the weight room. You’re always looking at those types of things.

Wired.com: What confidence do you take from having those sets of numbers at your fingertips and doing that analysis?

Stevens: Just that our guys are preparing and on the right track. We’re not doing it blindly. One of the things we want to do is make sure we’re not wasting their time. We don’t want to do things that are meaningless. If we’re doing a conditioning drill, we’re not just doing it to do it. We’re doing it to see where we are and determine what we need to do next.

Wired.com: Do you share your analysis with the players, or is kept mostly among the coaches?

Stevens: They know some of it, but they may not know all of it, which is OK. They don’t need to know everything.

Wired.com: How much of your analysis do players grasp when you share it with them?

Stevens: They grasp it all. Part of coaching is determining what players need to know, and figuring out how you can help make them become better, while the whole time they’re thinking they’re pretty good.

Image: Butler University

Follow us on Twitter at @wiredplaybook and on Facebook.

Authors: Brad Stenger

to know more click here