Butler Basketball: Takeaways from the Dawgs’ 2019-20 exhibition contests
With two exhibition victories under their belt, Butler basketball is ready to start the 2019-20 season. What did we learn from the Dawgs’ exhibitions?
Butler basketball season is upon us. After a long and hot-take-filled offseason, the new campaign has finally arrived and fans across the country can soak in some Bulldogs’ action. Over the course of this past week, Butler competed in two exhibition battles (fan attended and radio broadcasted) against local schools IU-Kokomo and UIndy. Although the blowout results should not necessarily have been surprises, there were definitely plenty of takeaways from the performances.
Of course, I understand that exhibition contests need to be taken with a grain of salt but it would also be a mistake to completely overlook what we witnessed as fans and analysts over the two events. In Butler’s victory over IU-Kokomo, the team came out of the gates firing in the first half on the offensive end before seriously sputtering with shooting splits of just .360/.111/.625 over the final 20 minutes. While this was a tad concerning, head coach LaVall Jordan did mention that the coaching staff did not scout the Cougars and wanted to see the team in action without major team-specific game-planning.
That seemed to be remedied in Game 2 as Butler kept up a strong offensive onslaught throughout the majority of their matchup with UIndy. Behind another strong scoring performance by senior forward Sean McDermott (29 points) and a sensational defensive outing, the Dawgs proved to be way too much on both ends of the floor for the Greyhounds. It is important to mention that UIndy was playing its third game in four days, but they were remarkably impressive in those first two games as they defeated Loyola-Chi and hung around with Xavier for almost all 40 minutes before falling by 12.
Looking ahead to the Butler season, it is fair to say that these exhibitions offered more positive takeaways than negative ones. There were definitely some minorly concerning aspects of the games, but it is hard to imagine being too upset with 70-40 and 79-47 victories. Just looking at the scores shows the disparity on both ends of the floor, as the Dawgs wasted no time in handling their business.
Now, without any further ado, let’s dive into my five biggest takeaways from Butler basketball’s preseason contests.