Lamont Butler doesn’t want to settle for just one shining moment on a Final Four stage.

The guy who made the buzzer beater to send San Diego State to the 2023 NCAA Tournament championship game is confident he can get back there as a fifth-year senior with Kentucky.

He has his new teammates believing that as well heading into No. 3 seed Kentucky’s Midwest Region semifinal matchup with No. 2 seed Tennessee (29-7) on Friday in Indianapolis.

“I will say from day one our focus was winning a national championship,” Butler said. “The expectation here at Kentucky is to win. And we’ve got a bunch of winners here, and we want to continue that tradition.”

This Kentucky team is a little different from any other in its storied history, which is why Butler’s tournament experience with San Diego State has been so important.

Kentucky (24-11) didn’t return a single player who scored a point for the Wildcats last season. New coach Mark Pope essentially built a roster from scratch. Nine transfers had to get accustomed to playing together.

Butler emerged as the leader of the group. Kentucky teammate Andrew Carr referenced it before the tournament when he jokingly referred to Butler as “LaMarch.”

The Wildcats look up to him in part because they know what he’s accomplished. The 6-foot-2 guard is making his fifth straight tournament appearance. His jumper as time expired in a 2023 NCAA semifinal gave San Diego State a 72-71 victory over Florida Atlantic, sending the Aztecs into a championship game they lost to UConn.

“Most of us talk about what happened to us,” Pope said. “We talk about what happened to us. And champions, winners talk about what they made happen. It’s just the truth. It’s true.

“Lamont Butler is spending his whole lifetime talking about what he makes happen, and that’s a champion’s heart. And he doesn’t spend any time talking about what happened to him. He talks about all the stuff he makes happen. When you have a guy like that leading your crew like that, it’s pretty special.”

Pope related a story from last summer when he was on the road recruiting and the team had planned something for a player who was going through a difficult family situation: “I called in to check with that player and see how the day went, and he had scrapped all the plans because Lamont scooped him up and they spent the day together. And Lamont did that because that’s who he is. He cares.”

Butler is averaging 11.1 points and 4.3 assists — career highs in both categories — despite dealing with a left shoulder injury dating to mid-January that cost him six games. He hurt it again in the Southeastern Conference Tournament and didn’t play in a quarterfinal loss to Alabama.

Butler returned for a 76-57 first-round NCAA victory over Troy and didn’t score at all, but he still contributed in so many other ways that he had a plus-minus rating of plus-22. Butler, who has been wearing a brace on the shoulder, had 14 points and five assists in an 84-75 second-round triumph over Illinois.

“He’s really a dog,” Kentucky guard Otega Oweh said. “Going out there with one arm and giving it his all. He’s playing defense, and on top of that, he’s getting us into our offense. When you have someone that’s doing that, it just trickles down. You just want to be out there and fight for him, too.”