Rough times for Basketball in the State of Indiana

While everyone is talking about Paul George's leg injury (as they should), the news that former Butler center Andrew Smith (one of my all-time favorite Bulldogs) is now in the intensive care unit battling his cancer hit me more.

Paul George has made millions dollars playing basketball and if he isn't able to continue his career at the same level, it would be a shame.  But he'd be alright.

Andrew Smith is in the literal fight for his life battling Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and it would be a tragedy to see such a great young man gone in his mid 20s.  He meant so much for Butler and did a great job in the post Hayward-Howard-Mack era to keep Butler basketball relevant.  It wasn't too surprising to see how much they struggled in the Big East without his true presence as a physical center this past season.

So I'm wishing both Paul and Andrew the best, but Andrew will be in my thoughts the most.

Is this it for Butler? Roosevelt Jones needs to prove otherwise.

After listening to Butler beat writer Zak Keefer depressingly talk about the 2014-15 Butler Bulldogs on Bluejay Banter (Creighton's radio show) last night, it got me thinking if Butler will ever be the powerhouse it was 3-4 years ago during Brandon Miller's tenure.  While Kameron Woods is not strong enough to guard Big East centers, and Andrew Chrabascz is not a legitimate power forward, it looks to be almost certain that they will start at the 5 and 4 respectively.  Chrabascz is no Khyle Marshall but he could be eventually.  But Roosevelt Jones' return is probably getting overlooked by many who have already written the Bulldogs off.  He does so many of the little things, including being the dribble penetrator that Elijah Brown was not.  He can create for Kellen Dunham, who had to work far too hard to get open and didn't have enough playmakers to find him when he was.  Jones will also take some of the ball-handling responsibilities away from Alex Barlow, who also was overwhelmed by defenses by the end of the season.

In a roster of so many players who were not recruited to play Big East basketball, Jones is the one player, who at 6'4 and 227 pounds, can match up with any 2 or 3 in the league and be a physical specimen on both ends of the floor.  He should be an upgrade on the rebounding front compared to Khyle Marshall and Erik Fromm, neither of whom were decent rebounders.  He made all the clutch plays down the stretch of the Gonzaga game in January 2013, and he could've been the difference in the insane amount of close losses Butler incurred this past season.  In the past he deferred to players like Andrew Smith and Rotnei Clarke.  But his time is now.  And if he cannot help revitalize Butler to a middle of the road Big East team, the questions surrounding Brandon Miller's squad will continue to mount.

Butler Basketball: No more remnants of the Final Four

I know I have not posted on the blog for a few months, but I have been writing numerous articles every week for a FanSided website called West Coast Convo.  I have still been watching a fair amount of Butler Bulldogs games, and I even went to the Butler vs. St. John's game at MSG in person.  This has not been an easy season for the Bulldogs, but I have confident that they will be better next season with a healthy Roosevelt Jones.  It wasn't easy to see the suspensions to Elijah Brown, Rene Castro, and even Kam Woods.  It wasn't any easier to have Rene Castro leave the program.  All of the turmoil definitely hurt the public's perception of Brandon Miller, but as he was on Illinois' staff in 2012-13, he knows what adversity is and he knows how to overcome it.

Anyways, the purpose of this article is mainly to talk about Khyle Marshall, whose contribution to Butler cannot be defined with some statistics.  Sure, he led the 2011 NCAA Tournament in offensive rebounds, but he's become a more complete player since then.  At the time, he was Matt Howard's understudy, and big things were expected of a highly recruited Marshall.  While he may not have lived up to Howard's career, he was a steady leader for Butler over the last few years.  He remained positive during a difficult 2011-12 season, and during the fantastic 2012-13 season, where he had to give up a fair amount of his playing at power forward to the emerging Kameron Woods.  And if you ask, me Khyle Marshall, not Kellen Dunham, was Butler's most valuable player this season.  While Dunham slumped during the second half of the season as defenses keyed on him the way they hadn't the year before when he was Rotnei Clarke's sidekick, Marshall remained productive throughout.  He shot over 50% in each of the last 6 games of the season.

Marshall had to be a senior leader as the only player left who played meaningful minutes on a Final Four team (I believe Erik Fromm played a grand total of 4 seconds in the 2011 NCAA Tournament).  I know he had an impact on Andrew Chrabascz the similar to the one Matt Howard had on him, which is why I am confident that Chrabascz will have a great sophomore season.  Looking forward, I have every reason to believe that a starting lineup of Barlow/Dunham/Jones/Chrabascz/Woods will be more competitive in the Big East next season.

I do not know how often I will be able to update this blog at this point, but I wanted to get this one post done to talk about my opinion on the state of the program and the loss of an excellent player.