Fifth-year forward Jahmyl Telfort put up 16 points and three rebounds against Villanova. Photo courtesy of Butler Athletics.
SARAH HOHMAN | MANAGING EDITOR | shohman@butler.edu
The men’s basketball team fell short to the Wildcats on March 1 with a final score of 80-70.
Butler got off to a sluggish start, especially from beyond the arc — going 5-15 from deep in the first half. Despite this, the Dawgs were able to cut the deficit to 43-35 at the half.
Coming out of the locker room, the Bulldogs secured stops on defense and capitalized on offense. They went on a massive 21-7 scoring run and tied the game up with 15:38 remaining in the game.
As fans have seen this season, all good things come to an end for this Butler team, and this game was no different today. The Dawgs went scoreless for nearly five minutes down the stretch in the fourth quarter to allow Villanova to shut the door.
Fifth-year forward Jahmyl Telfort and sophomore guard Finley Bizjack both led the team with 16 points. Senior forward Pierre Brooks flourished again with 14 points and seven rebounds.
In Butler’s second straight loss, let’s go beyond the box score.
Eric Dixon game
While the Bulldogs were able to make some key stops on defense, they could not control graduate Eric Dixon on his senior day for the Wildcats.
The forward put up an impressive 34 points on 66% shooting from the field and 57% from three. He added seven rebounds and three assists in his last game at Finneran Pavilion.
In Villanova’s two wins over Butler, Dixon scored 62 points and completely dominated the Dawgs, especially in the paint.
Streaky
Butler played a relatively clean game, only committing five turnovers and limiting the Wildcats fast break opportunities. Regardless of this, the Dawgs struggled with streaky runs on both sides of the ball.
The Bulldogs launched a significant amount of threes to start the game. Eventually they started falling with graduate forward Patrick McCaffery and Bizjack catching fire. Despite this, the several scoreless stretches of basketball after the fact restricted the Dawgs’ chances of making the final comeback.
With another loss, Butler has crushed the momentum they were hoping to bring into the Big East Tournament. The Bulldogs are not done yet, though, and will square off against rival Xavier in front of their fans in Hinkle on March 5 for senior night.
