Butler Basketball: Takeaways from nail-biting victory over Stanford

1. Kamar FREAKING Baldwin.

Mama, there goes that man.

Kamar Baldwin, who entered his senior season heralded as one of the best guards in all of the country, showed why down the stretch of this game. After starting the contest with just five points on 2-for-8 shooting over his first 24 minutes in the game, Baldwin was relegated to the bench at the 13:55 mark. When he returned to the game, though, the senior leader seemingly went into “I’m the best player on the floor” mode on the offensive end and there was nothing that Stanford could do to stop him.

Over the final 8:43 of the game, Baldwin scored 17 points on 8-for-10 shooting from the field. Oh, and he also got an offensive rebound and finished one of the possessions in which he missed with a bucket as well. Many complained about Baldwin’s tendency to go into “hero mode” last season but that was not the case in this game. While he was definitely the “hero” for Butler, he simply took what the defense gave him. Baldwin won his one-on-one matchup on every single possession as he was able to get to his favorite spots on the court for big-time buckets.

Baldwin has been well-known as a clutch scorer during his career, dating all the way back to just his second game at the collegiate level. In that contest, Baldwin buried a step-up jumper from the left wing to sink Northwestern at Hinkle Fieldhouse. Against Stanford at the Hall of Fame Classic this season, he buried the go-ahead bucket in Butler’s victory with a similar shot, this time from the right wing:

Some things just never change. Kamar Baldwin is, quite simply, a baaaaad man.