Butler Basketball: 2022-23 season preview for the Bulldogs

Season outlook for expectations

This Butler team is going to look very different from past Bulldog teams.

This season is a fresh start for everyone in this program, including the players in the eyes of Thad Matta.

"“Once we knew who we had on the team, I didn’t care what they had done in the past…let’s move forward and make them better and make them better in how we want to play.” Matta said at Big East Media Day."

The excitement around the program was nowhere to be found after Butler’s 14-19 2021-22 campaign. LaVall Jordan’s recruiting net wasn’t overflowing with talent and the on-court success was dwindling without a sense of direction. Matta has turned indifference into genuine anticipation around the Butler program.

On the court, these Bulldogs are going to look very different from the teams that usually roam the halls of Hinkle Fieldhouse. In the KenPom era, Butler has just one top 200 finish in tempo back in 2016. They have 11 outside of the top 300. That’s not to say tempo is inherently a bad thing, but Matta’s Ohio State squads finished in the top 218 in each of his last six years at the helm. Throughout his 13 years in Columbus, the Buckeyes were never a sub-300 tempo team and cracked the top 200 on five different occasions. The Bulldogs won’t run sprints from baseline to baseline all game, but they will play faster under this new regime.

On the defensive end, Matta’s teams have excelled defensively on the opposite end of the spectrum from Butler. Between 2005 and 2017, Ohio State had an average finish of 87.61 in defensive block percentage. That number skews slightly lower than it probably should do to two years at the beginning of Matta’s time in Columbus that were outside the top 250. In the following 11 seasons, the average finish was 53.27. Matta’s value of rim protectors has immediately followed him to Butler in the form of Manny Bates and Jalen Thomas. Both players have been top 70 rim protectors at KenPom and Bates was top 20 two seasons ago.

On the offensive end, Matta has, at least on paper, put an end to Butler’s 3-point shooting woes. The Bulldogs didn’t finish at any point during the Jordan era capped off by a sub-330 finish last season. Butler added two different 40 percent shooters in the portal in Ali and Hunter Jr.

The hope is that Lukosius will improve on a sub-30 percent year as a freshman as the floor opens up with more shooters. Harris finished at 29 percent last season but shot 40 percent as a freshman. With Hunter coming in to run the show, Harris should get better looks this season and return to a number much closer to 40 than the percentages from last season.

Ultimately, Butler has a lot of room to grow after the last two years. Nobody on this roster has been an important part of a winning basketball team in Indianapolis and winning takes time. In a strong Big East, Butler’s path to the NCAA tournament will be tough in Matta’s first season.

However, the potential is there for the Bulldogs to surprise people in the conference if high-major transfers translate and returning players take another step forward. If nothing else, Hinkle Fieldhouse is ready for a now highly anticipated year for Butler.