Once the annual hot pick to win in an NCAA tournament upset, Butler had become the trendy choice to lose as an upended favorite last week. So after his Bulldogs ousted Middle Tennessee in the second round, coach Chris Holtmann was asked if he'd used the disrespect as motivation. The coach didn't mince words.

He said he was "burned up" that so many pundits and analysts didn't think his Bulldogs were good enough to beat the Lightning, and he even admitted he'd love to "call out" the people who doubted his players.

And then, just as his fury neared a boiling point, Holtmann paused midthought, the fire suddenly extinguished. After a second, he scratched out a gravelly, "You know," before collecting himself and continuing.

"You know, as the late Joel Cornette said, 'We're still here,'" Holtmann said.

Sitting in his Chicago apartment, Jordan Cornette heard Holtmann use the familiar refrain and smiled a bittersweet smile. Jordan knew that indignation well. The same anger fueled Joel, his big brother, ever since he clanked two free throws in a big high school game.

"Where is Butler?" the crowd derisively chanted at Joel, then a Butler recruit.

And so after Joel led the Bulldogs to the 2003 Sweet 16, ousting Mississippi State and Louisville in the process, his answer to a question about Butler's Cinderella run was as much a response to those high school hecklers as it was to the present-day doubters.

Chris Holtmann leads Butler on Friday in the Sweet 16 against North Carolina. AP Photo/Laurence Kesterson

Where is Butler?

"We ... are ... still ... here,'' Joel, a senior at the time, said that day in March 2003.

Joel Cornette died Aug. 16 of last year, when his heart gave out from undiagnosed coronary artery disease at age 35. He had collapsed at home, leaving his little brother and parents stunned and overwhelmed with grief.

But in the seven months since, the Cornettes have come to learn something.

Joel ... is ... still ... here.

He's still here for the same reason that the legacy of Andrew Smith and Emerson Kampen IV live on at Butler.

Because Chris Holtmann has made sure of it.

Holtmann is not a Butler graduate, not born of the Butler Way. He didn't coach Smith or Cornette.

Yet just as he perfectly married his fury with his feelings on that dais last week, Holtmann has expertly guided his team through three seasons his wife, Lori, aptly dubbed "consistently surreal."

Holtmann was on the bench just one season before being named head coach during the 2014-15 season, inheriting the job only after his good friend, head coach Brandon Miller, took a medical leave.

In the past 15 months he has put together two memorial services, one for Smith, the beloved Bulldog from Butler's two Final Four runs who succumbed to cancer in January 2016, and one for Cornette.

He has also grieved with his assistant coach, Emerson Kampen, whose son Baby Em was just 6 months old when he died from a rare neurological disorder in February 2016.

And earlier this year he steadied his team's nerves after they disembarked from a plane that failed to pressurize, causing an emergency landing.

Nothing normal, consistently surreal.

Except for one thing.

Butler ... is ... still ... here.

On Friday night the Bulldogs take on top-seeded North Carolina in the Sweet 16.

"I didn't know Chris Holtmann from a ham sandwich,'' said Jordan Cornette, who played at Notre Dame. "Yet he's carried me along, he's carried us all along, on this ride.''

Chris Holtmann hugs Andrew Chrabascz after Butler's win over Middle Tennessee. James Lang/USA TODAY Sports

Lori Holtmann woke up on the morning of Dec. 30 to discover her husband hadn't come home. The Bulldogs had lost the night before to St. John's, so she figured he'd stayed in the office to break down film and solve the riddle of the defeat.

She reached for her phone and clicked the home button. There on the screen was a picture Holtmann had sent -- of oxygen masks dangling out of the ceiling of an airplane.

"We're all OK,'' Holtmann captioned the picture.

With no context for the picture, Lori scrolled Twitter to put the pieces together, learning only then that her husband wasn't at the office. He, along with the entire team, was in Pittsburgh after their charter plane was forced to make an emergency landing because the cabin lost pressure.

"I didn't know Chris Holtmann from a ham sandwich. Yet he's carried me along, he's carried us all along, on this ride." Jordan Cornette

Slightly panicked, Lori tried to call her husband, but he didn't pick up.

"I figured,'' she said, "he was busy taking care of everybody else.''

Caretaker coach -- that's essentially who Holtmann has been since he got the job, simultaneously maneuvering his team through real-life obligations and the less inconsequential task of winning basketball games. In August, after Cornette's service ended, Memphis transfer Avery Woodson asked Holtmann if he could change his number, believing that wearing Cornette's No. 33 would be disrespectful. On Feb. 15, with Jordan Cornette calling the game for FS1, Johnson scored a career-high 20 points in his new No. 0 jersey.

On Dec. 3, the Bulldogs beat Central Arkansas in the afternoon and attended a dedication at Covenant Christian High School in the evening, where the court was named after Smith.

After the Bulldogs were fined $5,000 for storming the court after beating No. 1 Villanova, the school and the Big East Conference agreed to donate the money to Be the Match, a bone marrow donor registration program that Samantha Smith, Andrew's widow, has championed.

And just last week, after the Bulldogs beat Middle Tennessee, Butler coordinator of basketball operations Brandon Crone texted Jordan Cornette, telling him he was wearing an American Heart Association wristband in honor of Joel.

It is an extraordinary balance and an even more difficult burden, this job of trying to use basketball as a way to disseminate joy. Yet Holtmann has succeeded, racking up 25 wins and a regional semifinal berth that he knows weighs heavier than a traditional March run.

"You can't help but feel enormous pressure in this job anyway, but I have felt at times, because we want to bring joy to people who could use that two hours as a way of losing themselves in a game, it's even more,'' Holtmann says, then pauses before continuing. "When you lose a game, you feel awful because you realize you can do something significant for all of these people, and you want so badly to do that.''

He wasn't supposed to be doing any of this. Holtmann came to Butler at the bidding of his coaching friend, Miller, ditching his own head-coaching gig at Gardner-Webb for a chance to ride in the second seat. It was a risky choice, but Holtmann, who grew up three hours away in Nicholasville, Kentucky, believed the reputation of the Butler program could get him on a coaching trajectory more quickly than the Big South head job.

A little more than a year later he was in charge. Miller took an indefinite leave of absence that ultimately became a permanent leave, and athletic director Barry Collier thought Holtmann's head-coaching experience trumped his Butler experience. He named Holtmann his interim coach, eventually promoting him to the full-time gig.

That season he guided the Bulldogs to a 23-11 record.

"I'm dog lucky,'' Collier said. "I was fortunate to have someone like Chris that had the credential and the chops to do the job, but when you look backward and really see the job that's been done, you realize how incredibly fortunate we are.''

It is never lost on Holtmann that his opportunity came only after his friend's troubles. While Butler continues to soar, Miller has retreated to the shadows, unheard from since the day he left the school.

Holtmann doesn't know whether Miller watches the Bulldogs, if the team's successes buoy him as he tries to get better. He hopes so.

"I think about it a lot, about him a lot,'' Holtmann said of Miller. "I'm very grateful to him for bringing me here, and him and his family, as far as I'm concerned, they're all a part of this.''

He feels the same about Samantha Smith, Andrew's widow. Still a part-time Butler student, she was never going to stray far from the program. It's her connection to Andrew. The basketball season is her favorite and most difficult time because it brings back so many memories.

Samantha Smith speaks to Butler fans last year after the death of her husband, Andrew. AP Photo/Michael Conroy

But Brad Stevens was Andrew's coach, not Holtmann. Samantha only got to know the new coach during her most extraordinary time of grief, as her husband fought and ultimately lost his two-year battle with cancer. But instead of a replacement for Stevens, in Holtmann she said she has found an extension.

When Cornette died in August, Samantha didn't want to go to his funeral. It was just eight months after Andrew had died, and a funeral so painfully similar to her husband's. She also knew she couldn't not go.

So Samantha gutted through the service, trying to hold it together. But when she spied a display case in the concourse, one including the jerseys of Andrew and Joel, she lost it. Paralyzed by the enormity of it all, Samantha stood in front of the display case and sobbed.

A few minutes later, someone wordlessly grabbed her hand. It was Lori Holtmann. As the day continued, Samantha found herself flanked by two people -- Lori Holtmann on one side and Tracy Stevens, Brad's wife, on the other.

"I felt so held up and loved by both,'' Samantha said. "That speaks to how well this gap has been bridged. Having Chris here and Lori, it's been a beautiful marriage. I'm not sure anyone could have handled it with the same amount of grace. Chris may seem like an outsider, but he's a Butler guy.''

The first time Jordan Cornette spoke to Chris Holtmann, it was to ask Holtmann to help arrange a memorial service for his brother at Hinkle Fieldhouse. It was Joel's favorite place, and to the Cornette family, it was the only place to honor him.

School was just opening that weekend, but Holtmann didn't hesitate. He made the proper calls, and on Aug. 22, the Butler community gathered to say their goodbyes.

Before the services began, the school replayed Joel's memorable 2003 news conference.

"As a player, my brother was on a mission to make sure people knew what Butler was,'' Jordan said. "With his passing, it's like he's ripped off a layer so people can see what the people are made up of beyond basketball. When Chris said, 'We're still here,' he wasn't using my brother to pump up a brand. This is who he is. This is what this team is. This team has been tested at every turn, but here they come.''

Butler ... is ... still ... here.

Because Chris Holtmann has made sure of it.