Butler Basketball: Keys to success against Louisiana Monroe in 2019-20

Pregame Hark’s Bark

1. I want to see Tucker/Battle sharing the court in this one.

Khalif Battle and Jordan Tucker are Butler’s most prolific bench scorers and will likely each see their fair shares of playing time come conference play. This is especially true with regard to Tucker, who is seemingly embracing his role as the team’s sixth man capable of playing 30+ minutes on any given night. In this particular matchup against Louisiana Monroe, I would like to see players like McDermott and Baldwin receive a bit more rest in the second half while testing out lineups with Battle/Tucker sharing the court.

Battle and Tucker are both on the paths to potential stardom next season (at least one will need to take the leap, in my opinion) and I would like to see more of how they operate when playing off of one another. If this works out against ULM, we might start to see more lineups with both of them on the court in Big East play. Not only would they provide a scoring punch, but they are both high-level athletes and blossoming above-average defenders.

2. What will Derrik Smits’ role be?

It’s fairly obvious already that Derrik Smits will be Butler’s third big in the rotation behind the “Bryce Bros” this season. That essentially answers my question above, but I am more curious to see how consistent his role is and how many minutes he ends up receiving. Smits is only heading into his third game as a Dawg and we are seeing him hover around 10 minutes. Is that a byproduct of him still returning to 100% or is that what we should expect moving forward?

I’ve stated in the past that Smits is a major upgrade over John-Michael Mulloy as the third big due to his size and experience at the collegiate level. If he just brings 10 minutes per game, then that will be enough for him to make an impact. I truly believe that. He could also see a skyrocket closer to 20mpg once he completely regains his health. I am simply curious to see how the coaching staff looks to use him moving forward.

Considering this is Butler’s last tune-up game of the year, I am expecting to see a season-high in minutes from Smits (I know that’s not saying much).

1. How will Butler attack off turnovers?

I talked about how Butler might be able to force a ton of turnovers already in this article. The fact of the matter is, though, that the Dawgs are not particularly prolific when it comes to scoring off turnovers. This is partially due to the team’s overall deliberate pace of play in that they look to get defenses out of position after turnovers and work the ball into the best possible mismatch. Considering ULM turns the ball over on nearly one-fourth of its possessions, we will get a lot of film on Butler’s attacking in transition.

On the whole, Butler is definitely the better team and will be playing at home. I think that the Dawgs might struggle offensively after an entire week off but should still come out with defensive intensity and dominate the possession battle.

Final Score Prediction: Butler Bulldogs –  70 | ULM Warhawks – 52