Big East Basketball: Each team’s worst performance of the last decade
By Joey Loose
Butler
April 4, 2011 (Connecticut 53, Butler 41) (GS: 57)
Can you imagine what would have happened had Gordon Hayward’s half-court heave had gone in? At that time, Butler was just a steady Horizon League program with a few Tourney upsets but they’ve propelled themselves to a yearly power in the Big East, even years after Brad Stevens left for the NBA. Those two national title runs were extremely impressive, but clearly, not everything about the Bulldogs is equally good.
Most of the focus for Butler is going to be the years before they joined the Big East but we’ll try to highlight as much bad as we can. Back in the dark days, this Butler team lost at home to Loyola in 2009 (despite 30 points from Matt Howard), and lost a slew of questionable games during Horizon League play in 2011. It’s understandable to drop a few games, but losing by 24 at Milwaukee and losing at all to Youngstown State is disappointing. The year after the second Final Four, they dropped two road games at Valparaiso, including in the Horizon League Tournament, and the team was wrecked by St. John’s back in February 2014 (a 25-point loss).
We may just be nitpicking, so let’s focus on the worst of the worst. On the surface, it’s asinine to say that a game in which an 8-seed is playing for a national championship could possibly be their worst performance of the decade, but perhaps the details of that game need to be exaggerated. This was a historically bad offensive performance for both teams, especially in a title game, and Butler shot an abysmal 18%. You can point out some rough losses, but Butler didn’t shoot 18%, let alone just 9.7% from 2! Connecticut didn’t make their 3’s (just 1-11), but Kemba Walker’s 16 points and Connecticut making their Free throws late punctuated this win.
Butler is in good shape for the future, especially with alum LaVall Jordan starting year two with his eyes on a greater prize. Butler’s shooting was disappointing in their second chance to snag a national title, but if that’s your worst performance, then you’ve had a solid decade. Any team that’s leaped from the Horizon League to the Big East and is almost yearly in the NCAA Tournament has had a solid decade.