document: After Final Four berths , can we still call Butler , VCU Cinderellas ? -LRB- CNN -RRB- - Cinderella . It 's a simple enough metaphor for college basketball , right ? Cinderella is a commoner , the story goes , abused and ridiculed by her stepmom and stepsisters on the eve of the royal ball . If not for the unlikely confluence of magic and mice , she has no hope of meeting Prince Charming . In the world of college hoops , you can supplant wicked stepmom with media , evil stepsisters with perennial basketball powerhouses , royal ball with NCAA tournament and Prince Charming with winning the whole shebang . If we 're pushing the metaphor , you can also replace mice and magic with suffocating defense and lights-out 3-point shooting . But when is the metaphor misplaced ? Ever ? Can a team shake the consummate underdog label ? How ? With Butler and Virginia Commonwealth - neither a stranger to toppling bigs - on tap this weekend , I began researching the Cinderella 's origin . I learned the story dates to ninth-century China and the term appears to have been popularized in '' `` Caddyshack '' '' when groundskeeper Carl Spackler -LRB- aptly played by Bill Murray -RRB- dreams of one day playing in the Masters . Butler returns to home crowd Vasectomy during '' `` March Madness '' '' Basketball dribbler aims for record After an hour of suffering the internet 's woefully unhelpful answers , I picked up the phone and called Michael Litos , a marketing consultant and freelance sportswriter but , more importantly , the author of '' `` Cinderella : The Rise of the Mid-Major . '' '' Litos told me he does n't like the term Cinderella , or the term mid-major - used to describe teams not aligned with one of the major conferences - but he realizes why we need them . By we , he means the media . '' `` I can see the metaphor and I 'm fine with it , '' '' he said . '' `` The media need them to kind of put things into boxes . ... What I hope we get past is people being surprised when mid-major teams win ballgames . '' '' I took no offense because ... well , he 's right . With Vegas estimating that 100 million people filled out brackets this year , wagering a collective $ 3 billion on legal and illegal soothsaying , the media are guaranteed a captive audience . At least until VCU or Butler came along and decimated the country 's brackets . Read SI.com 's complete tourney coverage Before going back to Litos , let me offer a disclaimer : Litos is a Ram , a VCU alumnus . He remembers when his boys toppled Duke in the 2007 tourney . He cringed when ESPN 's Hubert Davis said VCU did n't belong in this year 's showdown , and he probably smirked when the network 's like-minded Jay Bilas tweeted , '' `` Crow : actually , it tastes like chicken . '' '' Litos is also a Colonial Athletic Association buff , so he knows mid-majors . The CAA has produced two of the most compelling Cinderella stories in the last half decade if you count George Mason scrapping its way to a Final Four in 2006 . '' `` That 's my point , I guess , about the whole Cinderella thing : When they get the chance , they 're winning these basketball games , '' '' Litos said . So when does the moniker no longer apply ? Do we still consider Gonzaga a Cinderella after it 's made every tournament since 1999 ? Though you could argue VCU still needs to do some resume building , Butler seems to have earned its cred . So what about the Bulldogs ? After consecutive Final Four appearances and four Sweet 16s in the last seven years , is Butler still a Cinderella ? Read why Butler , VCU make great stories Litos said he believes Gonzaga has fairly shed the title . Cinderellas typically have minuscule basketball budgets -LRB- at least compared with the likes of Duke and Kansas -RRB- ; they do n't often play on television ; they come from conferences that usually lend only one team to the NCAA tournament 's field of 64 ; and they rarely play powerhouses , and then , never at home . Gonzaga has flipped the script and shown that success is cyclical , Litos said . Gonzaga now plays more frequently on television , which means more money , which means better facilities and players , which mean more winning . '' `` Gonzaga just wins , '' '' he explained . '' `` There 's a formula in there somewhere . There 's just a cycle of success , and it starts with winning basketball games . '' '' Which is exactly what Butler has done in the last two NCAA tournaments , and Litos believes it 'll be next to shake off the yoke of underdoggery . '' `` Butler 's probably on that precipice now , '' '' he said . '' `` I have a hard time believing that mid-major or Cinderella apply . '' '' Interesting stuff , this , but I know you 're thinking it 's worthless if I do n't tell you how to harness the information for next year 's office pool . As this year 's CNN.com pool winner -LRB- yes , it 's already over ; we 're that bad -RRB- , I 'd love to give you some insight . Here goes : I got lucky as hell with my Richmond and Butler picks . Lacking any thoughts more useful than that , I picked up the phone again - this time for a chat with Ken Pomeroy . The Utah-based meteorologist developed '' `` tempo statistics , '' '' which have earned him respect among many a college basketball coach and analyst , Duke 's Mike Krzyzewski and Butler 's Brad Stevens among them . He 's also a consultant to the Baylor basketball squad . Read why it 's easy to hate Duke His site , kenpom.com , focuses less on percentages than it does the pace of the game . Rather than looking at shooting percentage over an entire game or season , for example , he explores play-by-play data and considers how the pace of a game can affect scoring opportunities . Surely , I thought , this master of the quantifiable could give us some pointers on how to determine which underdogs are worth scribbling into our brackets . He flatly stated the opposite : '' `` You 're not going to be able to predict the success of an underdog . '' '' Sigh . Pomeroy , for one , is not ready to relieve Butler of its underdog status . He 'd like to see more than two stellar performances before making that assessment , he said . As for the VCU Rams , he 's not sure their success is totally their doing . Predicting VCU would shine in the tournament would have been difficult . It 's shooting better in the tournament than it did during the regular season . It 's playing better defense , too , Pomeroy said . '' `` Not to take away anything from what they 've done , but teams like Purdue and Kansas played pretty bad games against them , '' '' he said . '' `` How much of it was just Kansas laying an egg ? I do n't know how you figure that one out . '' '' Few do . Of almost 6 million entrants into ESPN.com 's bracket challenge , only two picked the Final Four . Yes , two . Pomeroy told me that , on paper , Kentucky and Butler should meet in the NCAA Final , then , in the next breath , said predictions are silly . But they 're fun , and let 's be honest , the first two rounds of the tournament would n't be as tantalizing without the Cinderellas . They 're the reason such a ludicrous percentage of the adult population scrambles to enter pools with friends and co-workers , the reason we monitor scores on our smartphones or head to lunch at the sports bar come tourney time . They 're also the reason that dilettantes who pick the winners by team color or mascot ferocity have the same chance as Litos or Pomeroy of winning a pool . The talent gaps between teams , especially in the later rounds , are n't all that disparate so success hinges more on intangibles such as hot streaks and moxie .
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