Butler Baddogs 58, Drake Gooddogs 48 + Some Mo’Head Preview

My goal of this post is to not spend the entire thing discussing the absolute ineptness of our offense on Saturday night. Let’s see how this goes…

For those that need a recap of Saturday night’s game, the Bulldogs struggled early and often on the offensive end of the ball. Drake shot 22% in the first half en route to a 25-14 deficit to Butler – with the 14 split between Josh Young and Bucky Cox. Drake picked it up in the second half, but Butler was able to answer every “run” (if you can even call it that) Drake put together as they ended up taking down the Bulldogs 58-48. Zach Hahn led Butler with 13, and Matt Howard chipped in 12 points and 7 rebounds.

Probably the most notable event of Saturday was the inability of Drake to create any sort of a shot from their offensive sets. Other than a slick backdoor cut by John Michael Hall which led to two free throws at the line, I can’t really recall anytime our offensive sets created an easy shot. In general, it was focused around entering the ball into the post to either Brent Heemskerk, Adam Templeton, or Bucky Cox – which put them in a spot to play to more of their weaknesses than their strengths. I need not explain anymore than a simple relay of the fact that Drake had 17 turnovers compared to 6 assists – you can obviously see the poor flow there.

To be fair, I think you do have to credit Butler. While they’re not at the talent level they were just last year when they won 30 games, they sure look at the early stages of a possible post-season team. They were patient, deliberate, and played very smart – exactly what a young team has to do to be successful on the road so early in the season. Brad Stevens seems to have a well coached team that can attack defenses in a variety of ways. They have a sure fire stud in the middle with Matt Howard, and a solid shooting ballclub that can hit the three point shot from plus distance. Defensively, they’re quick enough to challenge just about anyone they’ll face man-to-man, and they’re well enough coached that they can zone up to confuse.

Related to the offensive issues, I think the biggest note was that the story of the game was how teams took advantage of the opportunities presented. I was surprised to see that Butler had 16 turnovers – which I think is mostly due to the fact that Drake really had trouble cashing in on any opportunities. Butler, on the other hand, seemed to have a response for just about everything. I don’t readily have a statistic on points off of turnovers, but numerous examples seem to illustrate my point:

• Late in the first half, Josh Young had back to back turnovers which led to two easy fast break layups. This helped drive the 25-14 deficit going into half.
• Later in the game, as Drake made their run, Matt Howard got an outlet pass on a fast break and went up for the saddest dunk attempt I’ve seen in some time. Bucky Cox came out of nowhere and hammered it off the glass, waking up the crowd in the process. Unfortunately, Drake turned the ball over on the next possession and started to fade.

I really think the whole game would have changed had we been able to cash in that opportunity and build momentum, but well, that’s just the nature of the beast I guess.

While many are going to spend their time second guessing Phelps, I will point out (a) the defense played excellent. While they did give up some open threes, they held what appeared to be a average (at worst) to above-average team to 58 points and one of the best players not in a BCS conference down below his averages, and (b) they’ve been at it for four weeks. It’s going to take some time before this offense is running on all cylinders (let’s keep in mind it took the Tom/Keno Davis era multiple years before we were an offensive juggernaut).

Fortunately, we have what appears to be just what the doctor ordered with Morehead State coming into town on Wednesday night. They were picked to finish third in the Ohio Valley conference, but I’d expect that has been tempered somewhat by an 0-2 rocky start featuring a blown 15 point lead to Louisiana-Monroe and a blowout loss to Vanderbilt. Their 6-5 Senior Forward Leon Buchanan and their 6-8 center Kenneth Faried were pre-season all league selections, so they look to have some of the better talent from their conference. The Ohio Valley, however, is a pretty subpar conference at best. While it’s not as horrendous as the SWAC (sweet molasses, what a shitty conference that one is), let’s just say that if you were to start up a dynasty in one of the newer college basketball video games, you’d probably have your choice of a few OVC teams.

That said, let’s get the ball rolling fellas and put up a 70+ effort on Wednesday. Breakdown later in the week…