Butler season preview
By CHRISTOPHER DAVIS
ISL Correspondent
We have all been here. We have a great girl, but we leave her for greener pastures, longer legs and fuller lips if you will. Then, a few weeks into the new relationship, we start to realize that we’re now spending more money on nights out, we are the ones reaching up in this relationship, and we’re soon sneaking away to pine for the comfortable life we left behind. The Butler Bulldogs move to the Big East felt very similar in their first year as a member of one of the most storied basketball conferences in the country.
The conference lost some prestige when Syracuse, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, and last year’s NCAA National Champion Connecticut took off after the 2012-2013 season. The teams left in the conference, as well as the three newcomers, including Butler, Creighton, and Xavier carried plenty of cache, however. The ten teams that made up last year’s, as well as this year’s, version of the Big East have had four Final Four appearances since 2007, 21 total Final Four trips, and three NCAA Tournament Championships. For comparison sake, the Pac-12 would have a similar resume if you removed elite programs UCLA and Arizona.
The Bulldogs came into last season having seen the architect of their most recent success, coach Brad Stevens, move on to coach one of the NBA’s most storied franchises and with most of their players that had played major roles in their deep tournament runs either graduated or lacing it up for NBA teams.
The 2013-2014 season started off with promise, a 5-0 start followed by two point losses to very good Oklahoma State and LSU teams. That was followed by another five game winning streak, but then the conference season began. I think that’s a good place to jump on forward to my 2014-2015 preview.
Though there is little experience from the Bulldogs Final Four runs still left on this team, the success this year will hinge largely on the veteran faces, namely Kellen Dunham, Alex Barlow, and Roosevelt Jones who averaged 10 points and six rebounds in 2012-2013 before missing last season due to injury.
Dunham saw his scoring jump seven points per game last year from just over nine points per game the year before. The reinsertion of Jones and addition of another physical forward, freshman Tyler Wideman to the post should open the floor up for Dunham. If he can get his shooting percentage up over the 40% mark and his scoring average up over 20 points per game, Dunham could insert himself as a candidate for Big East Player of the Year. Team success will have a lot to say about that too.
Barlow was a stable force for the Bulldogs last year, with an assist-to-turnover ratio of nearly three-to-one, one of the best in the nation. With another year of experience under his belt, especially one going against higher level competition night after night, fans should expect more of the same from the senior point guard this year.
There are two newcomers to watch out for in forwards Kelan Martin, an ESPN Recruiting Nation 4-star recruit, and Tyler Wideman, ranked number seven overall in the state of Indiana by the same website.
Martin is a skilled big man with the ability and willingness to shoot the basketball. Butler Interim Head Coach was quoted as saying, “He (Martin) is what we call a willing shooter. I have yet to tell Kelan in practice ‘Kelan, look for your shot.’” Wideman, pronounced weed-uh-man, has an NCAA-ready body at 6’8”, 245 pounds, and according to an ESPN.com report by Andy Katz, Wideman has shown no tentativeness when it comes time to throw that big body around in practice.
I can’t do a season preview without mentioning the on-going absence of head coach, Brandon Miller, but there’s not much to say about it since the program is being very tight-lipped about his current medical leave of absence. All that can really be said is we’re not unaccustomed to such situations here in the state of Indiana, see Chuck Pagano and Indianapolis Colts, so maybe Miller’s absence can give these Bulldogs something to rally around.
Nationally, the outlook for the season is mediocre at best. A CBSSports.com poll of six of their analysts had the Bulldogs predicted to finish anywhere from 5th to 10th in the 10-team Big East, with an average finish of 7th. With a strong pre-conference showing, the 5th best team in the Big East will likely have a shot at making the NCAA Tournament, so there is hope.
With preseason games against North Carolina, Northwestern in Hinkle Fieldhouse, Tennessee, and Indiana, the Bulldogs will be given ample opportunity to make an early-season splash. The match-up against UNC takes place as part of the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament in Paradise Island, Bahamas, and, win or lose, following that game, they’ll get a chance to match-up against another Power Conference team in either UCLA or Oklahoma to further add to the potential tournament resume.
In terms of wins and losses I tend to agree with a lot of the outside sources saying that this year’s Bulldog squad will be sitting somewhere in the middle of the Big East pack, but I’ll give you some nuggets you might not be getting from the other sources.
Ranking 80th last year in defensive PPG does leave room for improvement, but a slight improvement on the 66.6 points allowed should enable the Bulldogs to be very competitive. The team’s biggest improvement will come on the offensive end of the floor as it looks to improve significantly from a team that ranked 243rd in points scored. I expect that improvement to come with the addition of exciting players like Roosevelt Jones and Kelan Martin and the improvement of the offensive game of Kellen Dunham.
Above all else, this team should be fun to watch. Not that they won’t show the same discipline that has been a staple of successful Butler squads over the last decade, but the block shot ability of Kameron Woods and Tyler Wideman inside and the perimeter defense of Alex Barlow, who was second in the conference with two steals per game last year, should add a little flash to that end of the court for the Bulldogs.
Increased and improved offensive weapons will likely lead to a more uptempo style and quicker scoring even in the half-court. Gone are the days of the 54-48 grinder in Hinkle Fieldhouse. We will see if the Bulldogs can end up on the right end of a few more of games this season.
First Game & First Home Game: November 15th vs. Maine, 4:30 PM
First Conference Game: December 31st @ Villanova, 2:30 PM
First Conference Home Game: January 6th vs. Providence, 9:00 PM
Many of the Bulldogs Games will be televised on Fox Sports 1, FoxSportsNet, and Fox Sports 2, and the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament Games will be televised on the ESPN Network between November 26th & 28th.
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ISL_Bulldogs
