Butler Basketball: Takeaways from victory over Western Michigan

Golden: 6.0 Pts, 3.0 Reb, 0.0 Ast

Golden only played about 21 minutes a game in 2019-20, so the shift to 30 minutes a contest is something he’s going to grow into. Nonetheless, he must be more involved given Butler’s lack of depth in the frontcourt as showcased through John Michael Mulloy’s inability to give Butler anything.

Golden shot 2-8 from the field, with three of those shots being 3-pointers of which he hit none. He can make them, but that’s not where Butler needs Golden spending close to 50% of his time on the floor. This is a team lacking inside presence and Golden can be that, but in order for that to happen Jordan needs to run more sets for him in the post.

At times on Wednesday night, Golden didn’t look especially engaged, and frankly when I looked at the box score his 30 minutes of action snuck up on me a little bit and there is a reason why. His PER (Player Efficiency Rating) was the worst of anyone who played more than 5 minutes for Butler. He will get more efficient, but in order for that to happen, he’s got to grab more than 3 rebounds per game and shoot a lot more 2s than 3s.

All in all, the Golden-Nze frontcourt is pretty good, but there doesn’t look to be much depth in Butler’s bigs, so they must get more out of Golden.