Drayton Jones was one of seven double-figure scorers against NJIT. Photo by Drew Kosmak.
DAVID JACOBS | MANAGING EDITOR | drjacobs@butler.edu
Working on just one day of rest after an ugly triumph over Northwestern, the men’s basketball team put on a clinic against NJIT in a 101-52 drubbing of the Highlanders.
As soon as the tip-off landed in Butler’s possession, the rout immediately began with a 17-0 run propelled by a 58% clip from the field.
“I wasn’t pleased with the way we started the game [against Northwestern] on Saturday,” head coach Thad Matta said. “We want to get off to good starts.”
Despite the hot start, the first half of play still had its hiccups. Four turnovers from first-year guard Stink Robinson put a sour taste in the offensive rhythm throughout the period, and a two-minute scoring drought amid the opening run that went rather unnoticed.
Regardless of the shortcomings, the Bulldogs held a strong 46-19 lead at halftime behind a red-hot four three-pointers from sophomore guard Evan Haywood.
Coming back from half, the Dawgs picked up right where they left off, feeding junior center Drayton Jones in the paint as he scored the first eight points of the half for Butler.
“That’s just my teammates having trust in me,” Jones said. “Even if I wasn’t the one to score, it just feels good to advance the ball, and it happened to be me tonight. It felt good to get the [ball] and rock out.”
Additionally, NJIT found some offensive rhythm early on but was quickly halted by an eight-minute drought without a made basket following the under-16 timeout.
That defensive pressure was accompanied by a polished offensive look compared to the first half by slowing down the pace and focusing on feeding the paint with the size advantages of Jones, graduate forward Michael Ajayi and senior center Yohan Traore. By doing so, this led to 15 second-half assists compared to just five in the first half.
“In the Northwestern game, we got up to an 11-point lead [early] in the second half, and we kind of relinquished that,” Matta said. “That was something we talked about at halftime of starting the halves as strong as we good, and Drayton gave us a great lift to start.”
With a more evenly distributed minute allotment across the rotation, Butler logged a season-best seven players in double figures as Ajayi led the way with his tenth double-double of the year, finishing with 15 points and 12 rebounds and eclipsing 1,000 points for his career. Jones was right behind with 14 points, while Haywood and first-year guard Efeosa Oliogu-Elabor each added 13.
“The biggest thing for us is that we finished the non-conference 9-2, and we’ve had some good wins,” Matta said. “I love the fact we got seven in double figures today because we told them this was going to be a high assist game.”
Following the dominating showcase, the Dawgs return to conference play with a critical road test against Creighton on Dec. 30.
