Friday, March 15, 2013

Butler on to A-10 semi-finals after wins against Dayton and LaSalle

First off, sorry for the late update.  Weekday afternoon games just aren't a good time for me.  Nonetheless, Butler has beaten Dayton and LaSalle the last two days to reach the semifinals.  I will discuss each game separately.

Dayton
This game saw Rotnei Clarke and Andrew Smith as Butler's primary scorers, with Smith scoring 18, and Clarke 21.  Both shot the ball well, and they combined for 13/25 from the field.  Erik Fromm played his best game in quite some time with 9 points in 10 minutes off the bench, going 4/6 from the field.  No one else stood out from a scoring standpoint, all the Roosevelt Jones has proven he is the best passer on this team, dishing out 6 assists against Dayton.

LaSalle
Butler had much more balanced scoring in this contests, with six different players all scoring between 9 and 14 points.  Clarke shot the ball poorly and finished with 14 points.  Butler got excellent scoring production from 3 out of their 4 bigs, as Smith, Marshall and Woods combined for 34 points.  Butler does not need Fromm and Woods to both score in the same game, but for Butler to be successful, at least one of them have to provide a spark off the bench.  Against Dayton it was Fromm, and against LaSalle it was Woods.

Now Butler is hoping to get revenge on Saint Louis the same way the got revenge on Milwaukee during the 2011 Horizon League Championship.  The match ups are quite similar.  For both Milwaukee in 2011 and Saint Louis this year, Butler got blown out on the road and lost a close game at home during the regular season.  In 2011, Butler beat Milwaukee in the championship to make it to the NCAA tournament.  Just like it was in 2011, Butler hoping that the third time is the charm against Saint Louis.


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