Photo by Rachel Anderson

A strong first half showing by the Butler men’s basketball team was not enough to stop No. 7 Louisville as they defeated the Bulldogs 69-53.

Photo by Taylor Cox

Butler coach Brad Stevens said the team lagged in the latter part of the game, and that loss of momentum showed on the scoreboard.

“We had a lot of guys do a lot of good things for about 30 minutes,” Stevens said.

Throughout the first half, both teams fought for almost every point, with aggressive rebounding and pressure on both ends and during in-bound passes. Chase Stigall landed a string of three-point shots and finished with 11 points. He was second on the team in points after Khyle Marshall, who tallied 20.

Kyle Kuric led the Cardinals with 17 points and teammate Chris Smith had 15.

While Andrew Smith used his height to block some shots, he fouled early and finished with only four points. Chrishawn Hopkins was also less of a force, scoring only four as well. They had 16 and 12 points against Chattanooga, respectively.

While he didn’t put up many points, Stevens said he has told Hopkins in front of the entire team that he has the potential to be great.

“He played more timid than I would have liked,” Stevens said. “He can be as good as he wants to be.”

Butler (1-2) led steadily until the Cardinals (3-0) pulled within one point at just over the one-minute mark. Jared Swopshire scored with 2.4 seconds remaining to give Louisville a 29-28 lead.

Louisville had 20 points in the paint to Butler’s four, but the Bulldogs were able to grab eight points off turnovers.

The teams fought back and forth in the first part of the second half until a layup by Kuric at 11:24 grabbed a 45-41 lead for the Cardinals.

Shots continued not to fall the Bulldogs’ way, and Louisville eventually widened the gap to win by 16 points.

Marshall said while the team can grow and make strides, the players need to focus on finishing games strongly.

“We let our foot off the gas a little at the end,” he said.

Stevens said facing a ranked team this early in the season is difficult, but that it was no excuse.

“We’re throwing these guys to the wolves,” he said. “But your schedule doesn’t stop you from playing consistently. That’s what we’ve got to get better at.”

Photo by Taylor Cox

Louisville now leads Butler 6-5 in the all-time series. The Cardinals claimed an 88-73 victory the last time the two faced off.

While the margin between the two teams was almost identical this year and last, Stevens likened last year’s meeting to “being in a heavy rainstorm.”

He said they were more prepared this year.

“This year we competed,” he said.

Butler will next face Savannah State on Nov. 21 and Gardner-Webb on Nov. 23. Both games tip off at 7 p.m. in Hinkle Fieldhouse.

The Butler men’s basketball team defeated Chattanooga 57-46 yesterday to pick up its first regular season win following the unveiling of a celebratory banner.

Former Butler players Shelvin Mack, Zach Hahn and Grant Leiendecker were on hand for the revealing of a banner recognizing the Bulldogs’ run to a second consecutive Final Four.

On a night that was all about Butler, the Mocs (0-2) did their best to spoil the Bulldogs’ party.

“We challenged our guys before the game, and I thought we responded,” Chattanooga coach John Shulman said. “We played as hard as we’ve played since we went to the NCAA Tournament.”

After controlling the opening tip, the Mocs’ tough defense and opportunistic offense gave the Bulldogs (1-1) fits.

Butler went to halftime with a 28-27 lead. The team was led by sophomore guard Chrishawn Hopkins, who scored 11 points and also added three assists in 19 minutes of play.

The Bulldogs immediately attacked the Mocs in the second half, with senior guard Ronald Nored converting on a lay up 14 seconds in.
Butler held a 45-40 advantage with 12 minutes left in the game before going cold on offense.

During the next nine minutes, the Bulldogs would score just four points.

Junior guard Chase Stigall finally broke the drought with a 3-point basket from the left side with two minutes left.

Prior to sinking that shot, Stigall had missed all nine of his attempts from behind the arc in regular season action.

Junior center Andrew Smith led the team with 16 points and ten rebounds, recording his first double-double of the young season.

“I thought we played pretty well on the defensive end,” Smith said. “Guys stepped up and hit shots when we needed them to.”

Hopkins also made a significant contribution with 12 points and five assists. Stigall contributed seven points in 31 minutes of play.

As a team, the Bulldogs shot a porous 57 percent from the free throw line and 27 percent from behind the arc.

“It probably didn’t meet a lot of people’s desires,” coach Brad Stevens said. “We’re going to have to get a lot better in a lot of areas, but I was really pleased with that win.”

Chattanooga senior guard Ricky Taylor led all Moc scorers with 13 points, closely followed by senior forward Omar Wattad, who tallied 10 points.

Four days ago, the Bulldogs opened the regular season with an 80-77 overtime loss at Evansville.

A crowd of nearly 9,500 turned out for the first game inside Evansville’s new $127 million Ford Center.

Led by 11 first-half points from Hopkins, Butler took a 37-28 lead into halftime.

Hopkins finished with a team-high 22 points in his first collegiate start.

The Purple Aces (1-0) responded in the second half by tightening up on the defensive end, forcing Butler to settle for long jump shots.

Photo by Maria Porter

The result was a four-minute scoring drought for Butler and an 11-0 run for Evansville, tying the game at 54.

Evansville junior guard Colt Ryan made a layup with 44 seconds left to pull the  Aces within one.

Ryan led all scorers with 23 points, including 14 from the free throw line. Evansville tallied 32 points off free throws, eight more than Butler even attempted.

Ryan drew a foul with less than a second remaining, hitting one of two free throws and tying the game at 69.

With nine-tenths of a second remaining, Butler junior center Emerson Kampen threw a full-court pass to Andrew Smith, who made a layup as time expired.

“Three or four times a week, we run situations at the end of practice, and one of those situations is exactly what happened,” Kampen said.

However, upon review, the referees ruled that Smith had been fouled before going into his shooting motion.

Smith’s basket was nullified, and he missed the ensuing pair of free throws, sending the game to overtime.

Led by Ryan, the Aces never trailed in extra time.

Butler will host Louisville on Saturday in a non-conference contest.

The Cardinals (2-0) will look for a repeat of last season’s 88-73 drubbing of the Bulldogs.

The game will begin at 2 p.m.

Aldridge

Numbers never lie.

This year, the Butler men’s basketball team must replace 42.4 points and 16.6 rebounds per game from departed players Matt Howard, Shelvin Mack, Shawn Vanzant, Grant Leindecker and Alex Anglin—not to mention the intangible benefits of their leadership.

This year’s men’s basketball team boasts seven new faces, six of whom are freshmen.

Barlow

The other, Rotnei Clarke, is a transfer from Arkansas. Clarke must sit out this year as a transfer before using his final year of eligibility.

Redshirt junior guard Chase Stigall said he was enthusiastic about having a player of Clarke’s caliber joining the team, even if Clarke is not able to play for a year.

“Me, Ron [Nored] and Chrishawn [Hopkins] are going to be chasing him around all of practice, so he is going to make us better every single day,” Stigall said. “We are really excited to have him here.”

Clarke

Players will need to step up in all areas to fill the void left behind by the graduated seniors and Mack’s departure for the NBA.

No player remains on the team who shot better than 35 percent from behind the 3-point line with at least 15 attempts. That is one weakness the team has been focusing on in offseason sessions.

Second-year forward Khyle Marshall, fresh off a stint on the USA Basketball 19 and Under team, said he has been working with coaches to improve his 3-point shooting.

Jones

“Coach [Matt] Graves and I have been shooting 50 threes before every practice,” Marshall said. “It’s definitely something I felt I needed to work on.”

Shooting is not the only thing the team has been focusing on, though.

“We are always conditioning,” Stigall said. “We are always getting up and down.”

The roles of players constantly change each season, and junior forward Andrew Smith said he may see his role change this season with Howard’s departure.

“I don’t think one person is going to fill Howard’s role,” Smith said. “Obviously he was such a great player. We are going to have multiple people step up and fill in where they can.”

Kampen

Even with so many departed players, the business-as-usual feeling around the team remains the same.

Coach Brad Stevens said he has no plans to let the atmosphere surrounding the team take a turn for the worse because of player departures.

“The first time we go on a road game at Evansville, [the freshmen] are going to find out how hard it is to play college basketball,” Stevens said.

Woods

Stevens said he will look for the seniors to teach the new guys about playing expectations at Butler.

“One of the things seniors need to do is to exhibit what you believe are the most important traits of a program,” Stevens said. “Not just as a team, but as a program, those are the things to pass on down the line.”

After the game at Evansville, the Butler upperclassmen will get a chance to display those traits during four consecutive home games, starting Nov. 15 against Tennessee at Chattanooga.

In the end, everyone is wondering how the team plans to expand on recent successes while also teaching newer players about The Butler Way.

Smeathers

“All we have to do is just prepare as a team, have 15 guys on the same page and be ready to play,” Marshall said.

The Butler men’s basketball team earned a share of its fifth consecutive Horizon League regular season title Saturday, when it defeated Loyola, 63-56, in front of a sold out crowd.

However, tiebreakers will send the Bulldogs (21-9, 13-5 HL) to Milwaukee as the No. 2 seed, which grants them a first- and second-round bye in the conference tournament.

The victory could have been the last home game for the 2011 senior class, which consists of guard Alex Anglin, guard Zach Hahn, forward Matt Howard, guard Grant Leiendecker and guard Shawn Vanzant.

During the past four seasons, the five seniors have helped lead the Bulldogs to four Horizon League regular season championships, two Horizon League tournament titles and three straight NCAA tournament appearances, including last year’s national runner-up finish.  Their 110 wins are the second-most by any senior class in Butler men’s basketball history.

A 7-2 Butler run just after the 13-minute mark in Saturday’s contest was capped by five straight points from junior guard Shelvin Mack, giving the Bulldogs a 14-10 lead.

The Ramblers (16-14, 7-11) responded with an 11-2 run of their own, taking a 21-16 advantage with 7:41 remaining in the first half.

Loyola held that lead until the one-minute mark when junior guard Ronald Nored scored in transition, drew a foul and attempted to convert the three-point play at the free-throw line. Nored’s free toss was off the mark, but

Howard pulled down the rebound and found a cutting Nored who laid it up and in to give Butler a 29-26 lead.

The Bulldogs would never trail again.

On the final possession of the half, Mack drained a 3-pointer as time expired to send the Bulldogs into the locker room with a 32-26 lead. Mack scored 14 first-half points and finished the game with 18, leading all scorers.

A few minutes before halftime, Butler head coach Brad Stevens, left the game to see an eye doctor.

“My vision got progressively worse as we were getting ready to start the game,” Stevens said in a press release. “By the final media timeout of the first half, I could not see the other end of the court and everything in front of me was blurry.”

Stevens was later diagnosed with a corneal edema, a condition in which the cornea swells from being overly hydrated by accumulated fluid.

Stevens recovered and returned to practice on Sunday.

Associate head coach Matthew Graves relieved Stevens in the second half and was at the helm when sophomore guard Chase Stigall put on a show.

Stigall, who was held scoreless in the first half, scored five consecutive points to start the second.

He finished with 10 points, including a momentum-shifting play near the eight-minute mark, when Loyola freshman guard Denzel Brito grabbed a defensive rebound following a missed 3-pointer by Howard.

As Stigall’s teammates hustled down the court to defend the Ramblers transition offense, Stigall snuck up behind Brito, stole the ball and converted a layup.

However, the Bulldogs needed help from a few seniors to seal the victory.

Putting Loyola’s comeback hopes further out of reach, Vanzant, who finished with 10 points, knocked down a 3-pointer to put the Bulldogs up by eight, 60-52.

Hahn was able to help seal Butler’s 63-56 victory by sinking two crucial free throws in the game’s final minute.

Nored finished with eight points, and sophomore center Andrew Smith finished with six points and a game-leading 11 rebounds.

Following the game, feelings were bittersweet as the seniors said their goodbyes to the home crowd and reflected on their time at Butler University.

“Now that it’s over, it’s a little bit crazy to think that you’re never playing on Hinkle’s floor again as a Butler Bulldog,” Howard said. “We’re very appreciative of everyone that came out. We haven’t had a crowd like that all year.”

The city of Connersville, Ind., bought 1,400 tickets to see Howard, a Connersville native, put up nine points and seven rebounds in his Hinkle finale.

New Castle (Ind.) High School, alma mater of Hahn and Stigall, purchased 200 tickets for the afternoon game.

Butler will play in the Horizon League Tournament Semifinals at 6 p.m. on Saturday in Milwaukee. The Bulldogs face the winner of a Cleveland State-Wright State contest, which takes place Friday evening.

Regardless, Graves is confident that his squad is peaking at the right time.

“Heading into postseason play, the way we have been defending is encouraging,” Graves said. “We are right where we need to be.”

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