Busting Brackets
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Butler Basketball: Breaking down the non-conference schedule

By Lukas Harkins

MILWAUKEE, WI - MARCH 16: A Butler Bulldogs cheerleader cheers in the second half against the Winthrop Eagles during the first round of the 2017 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at BMO Harris Bradley Center on March 16, 2017 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
MILWAUKEE, WI - MARCH 16: A Butler Bulldogs cheerleader cheers in the second half against the Winthrop Eagles during the first round of the 2017 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at BMO Harris Bradley Center on March 16, 2017 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) /
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MILWAUKEE, WI – MARCH 16: A Butler Bulldogs cheerleader cheers in the second half against the Winthrop Eagles during the first round of the 2017 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at BMO Harris Bradley Center on March 16, 2017 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
MILWAUKEE, WI – MARCH 16: A Butler Bulldogs cheerleader cheers in the second half against the Winthrop Eagles during the first round of the 2017 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at BMO Harris Bradley Center on March 16, 2017 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) /

Now led by new head coach LaVall Jordan, Butler basketball has released their non-conference schedule for the 2017-18 season. Let’s take a look.

This offseason was an interesting one for a lot of teams, including the Butler Bulldogs. First, they were coming off of their best seed ever in the NCAA Tournament and a berth in the Sweet 16. They also had secured their top-rated recruiting class in school history for the upcoming season. Then, their head coach Chris Holtmann left Butler to become the head man at Ohio State.

After their coaching search, the university decided on former Butler player and then-head coach at UWM LaVall Jordan to be the new head coach. Jordan has quickly filled out his new coaching staff and was able to retain the majority of the previously mentioned recruiting class. Heading into this season, expectations will still be high for this team, based largely on the assumption that Kelan Martin and Kamar Baldwin are the kind of players who can make the team a contender for an NCAA Tournament bid.

Before getting too far ahead of ourselves, though, the non-conference schedule is where everything gets started for a tournament resume, and Butler just released theirs.

Thanks to games against Princeton, Maryland, Utah, Purdue, Texas, and possibly Duke or others, this is a strong schedule. There are a ton of home games, which doesn’t look too great on the resume, but as long as they are victories, that shouldn’t matter too much. With a relatively new roster compared to year’s past, having some time to get accustomed to rotations and roles on the home court could prove to be important.

Despite playing several games at home, Butler will still be working with a challenging schedule and that should help their resume this season, as it did in 2016-17 when they received a four seed in the Big Dance. Now, let’s jump into each game and see a little background on each of Butler’s opponents.