Butler Basketball: Takeaways from nail-biting victory over Stanford

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - FEBRUARY 20: Kamar Baldwin #3 of the Butler Bulldogs attempts a shot while being guarded by Brendan Bailey #1 of the Marquette Golden Eagles in the second half at the Fiserv Forum on February 20, 2019 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images) /

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PHILADELPHIA, PA – MARCH 02: Baldwin of the Bulldogs drives. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images) /

Butler basketball needed all 40 minutes to take down Stanford at the Hall of Fame Classic but the team remains undefeated heading into Thanksgiving.

Kamar Baldwin. That’s it. That’s the whole article. Is there anything else really worth discussing?

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Okay, that was a joke, because there is actually a lot to unpack from Butler basketball’s thrilling victory over Stanford, but you have to admit that he was pretty special. In case you somehow missed it while watching Stephen F. Austin upset Duke in the biggest surprise of the night, Butler leaned heavily on the play of Baldwin down the stretch of the Hall of Fame Classic championship. There will, though, be plenty of words sprinkled throughout this article regarding the Dawgs’ senior leader.

As a brief recap of the game, Butler jumped out to an early lead and controlled the game for the majority of the first half. When senior wing Sean McDermott went down with an apparent ankle injury and needed to use a wheelchair to return to the locker room, though, things started to fall apart for the Dawgs. Stanford went on a big run (capped by an atrocious missed travel leading to a 3-pointer) to end the half tied at 30 points.

In the second half, the Cardinal rode that momentum to take the lead and dictate the pace of the contest. Yet, when McDermott returned to the game, Butler seemed to be reinvigorated. Head coach LaVall Jordan deployed his most experienced lineup possible with Thompson-Baldwin-Baddley-McDermott-Nze running the show. While that five-man group might have been a bid undersized, they fought valiantly to push Butler back on top.

From that point forward, it was basically the Kamar Baldwin show, and that’s exactly where my major takeaways from this victory begin.