Butler Preview: ‘Dawgs ready to prove doubters wrong
By CHRIS GOFF
ISL Assistant Editor
INDIANAPOLIS – Blue II is in bulldog heaven. The Atlantic 10 is in the past. Brad Stevens is in Beantown. Roosevelt Jones is in street clothes. Rotnei Clarke is in Australia, Andrew Smith is in Lithuania and even radio announcer Brandon Gaudin is in Atlanta.
Change might be the Butler Bulldogs’ toughest foe this season.
For a program that prides itself on continuity and culture, outsiders wonder whether these circumstances might be more than Butler can handle. The Bulldogs’ roster consists mainly of young or unproven players: six freshmen, two sophomores, four juniors who have only 29 starts between them and two seniors. Brad Stevens, the biggest fish in school history, took his .772 career winning percentage to the parquet floor at the Garden and left the keys to Hinkle Fieldhouse in the hands of 34-year-old Brandon Miller, whose career record is 0-0.
Internally, the men and women involved with the program believe a new era doesn’t mean a new Butler. In fact, point guard Alex Barlow is more than fine with all of the change.
“That’s been a good thing,” he said.
Miller, who scored 1,121 points in three seasons as a feisty, smart and sweet-shooting guard for Butler, said to expect a familiar look when his first group takes the floor on Saturday night against Lamar in the season opener.
“We’re going to be like a lot of Butler teams,” Miller said. “We’re going to take care of the ball. We’re going to be a team who shares the ball at a high level. We’re going to play together. You’re not going to see a lot of 1-on-1 basketball, one pass and a shot. You’re going to see team basketball. We have those fundamentals Butler’s always done.”
Practices stayed the same as with Stevens, and Miller’s energy has players more focused on playing their roles than worrying about changes.
“We love him,” Kellen Dunham said. “He’s been a good guy so far and seems he’s going to be a really good coach. Coach Miller might be a little more intense because his first year he’s really trying to get things going.”
Khyle Marshall played in a national championship game as a wide-eyed freshman. Now he’s one of the main leaders trying to help Miller enforce those Butler standards. Marshall felt pretty good about his offseason because of improvements he made off the court. Building relationships with teammates and getting ahead on his studies as a physical education major have Marshall ready to roll.
“I’m feeling good right now,” he said. “I’m just in that mode where it’s my senior season and I gotta get focused. There’s a lot of stuff going on, especially when my season’s done what I’m going to do professionally. I definitely have a lot of things in perspective. I’m thinking about a lot of things and just working my hardest.”
In addition to providing guidance to keep his teammates in line, Marshall’s primary responsibilities this season will involve scoring on a more regular basis. He reached double figures 17 times last year but also had six points or fewer on nine occasions. With the graduation of Andrew Smith, the thought was Marshall might work on being more of a post presence, but instead he went in a totally opposite direction and spent the fall developing a perimeter game.
“More of the emphasis has been on ballhandling and shooting because at a professional level, 6-7 post players are not going to get you too far,” Marshall said. “I’m working to try to be on the perimeter more.”
He and Miller discussed on multiple occasions the possibility of Marshall spending time at small forward, where Jones had a foothold until tearing ligaments in his left wrist on the team’s August exhibition tour of Australia.
“See how that pans out,” Marshall said. “If I do, great. If I don’t, it’s not the end of the world. I’m still going to do whatever it takes to win. When I’m needed to post up, I’m going to do whatever Coach needs me to do.”
If Marshall is the heartbeat of this season, Dunham is the face. He committed to Butler as a sophomore at Pendleton Heights High School and now has Bulldogs fans hoping he won’t be a reluctant star. Dunham set a goal to get stronger and added five to eight pounds of muscle. While he practiced getting his own shot and improving his handle, Dunham also worked on his skills as a creator and facilitator.
“That’s a big part of my game,” said the 6-foot-6 guard, who is expected to grow out of the passive stretches that plagued his game as a freshman and become a potent force as the offensive focal point. “I’m hoping. Wherever I fit in, that’s all up to Coach.”
For his part, Miller is still figuring it all out. As many as 11 players could compete for rotation minutes at some point.
“You go into the year and try to fit your pieces together,” Miller said. “You try to play to your strengths and hide your weaknesses. The best teams normally have more strengths and less weaknesses so it’s easier to do that. We’re finding out what those strengths and weaknesses are. You see how guys are improving and where guys can have a little more freedom to play this year than last and how they can have an increased role.”
The chance for support from quality players off the bench has Dunham excited. He was one of them last season.
“Forty minutes is a long game so you have to have guys come in and contribute,” Dunham said.
While Stevens never was one for weird lineups or unconventional styles, Miller speaks openly about mixing and matching with a versatile roster.
“Kam Woods can guard anybody: a 1, a 5,” Miller said. “That’s what you’re referring to with interchangeable parts. That gives you options. That gives you the ability to play different ways and styles. We do have guys who can guard multiple positions.”
Like with everything else, though, Miller is hardly reinventing the wheel. Butler is 215-69 over the past eight seasons largely as a result of a tough, physical brand of basketball marked by traditional size at all five positions. Miller, for the most part, sounds predisposed to coach that way.
“Any time you can have size on the floor it’s good,” he said. “The guys on the floor are going to depend on the situation and the team that you have. If the other team has five guards, and we have three guys out there that can’t guard their guards, we’re probably going to sub. We’re probably going to go small and have five guys that are small as well, if that’s to our favor. If we have size and make the other team match us, we’ll have size. There’s a lot to be determined in terms of who’s going to play and how much size we have on the floor.”
The backdrop for these issues is the 10-team, reformed Big East, where the favorites – Marquette, Georgetown and Creighton – have Final Four aspirations. Dunham faced plenty of guys around this league as a teenager in AAU ball and is eager to go against them on national television in some storied venues.
“It’s going to be some fierce competition,” Dunham said. “I’m looking forward to the whole atmosphere.”
That’s Butler. They recruited fearless kids. In the face of change, it’s paying off, because they’re undaunted about facing the future, no matter what it might hold.
See Also: ‘Dawgs scouting reports
Butler Preview: Go-to guy, burning question and expectation
Follow Chris Goff on Twitter: chrisgoff_ISL.
