WH

Illini look good. Three veteran guards who can shoot. Some decent bigs with good size. Seem rejuvenated under coach John Groce.

Illinois also benefited from an easier route to the final game (mediocre USC team, Chaminade). Butler had two wars with Marquette and UNC. The Dogs played as hard as any team I’ve ever seen in that win over the Tarheels. Spent a lot of energy.

Still, there were things that I did not like in the Illini game and it all starts with Rotnei Clarke.

Now, Clarke put up good numbers and gave the Illini defense trouble. He hit 6-13 treys and scored 27 points. At times he was the only Bulldog scoring.

That’s the problem. As the point guard, Clarke has to get his whole team involved. When he does, Butler plays very well. When he doesn’t the team will struggle.

Clarke had just one assist and five turnovers. He looked for his shot too much and did so early in the shot clock. He took at least half-dozen quick shots that missed - shots he could have gotten later in the shot clock after working the ball around.

Some of the blame belongs to teammates. They did not always finish when Clarke delivered a nice pass. But Clarke cannot do it all alone. He has to trust his teammates more and show more patience.

The frosh Dunham had a bad game. Illini defenders stuck to him like glue and he never got a really good look, but he took 11 shots anyway and missed all but one. His defense was even worse. At least three times I saw an Illini guard blow by him for a driving layup. A-10 teams will need to attack him defensively.

The way I would defend Butler is shut down Dunham, limit Clarke’s drives to the hoop and make sure to box out on the bigmen.

Clarke will get his from outside but make him work for it. The key is not to let Dunham join in the fun. Once Clarke starts to feel like he needs to shoulder the scoring load the Butler offense starts to get out of sync.

Butler’s bigs won’t do much damage normally in the postup game unless they are playing smaller teams. They get a lot of their points on putbacks or good feeds from the guards. Opponents have to keep them off the offensive glass.

I think Roosevelt Jones is the X-factor. He is a good penetrator and decent passer. He'd give Butler another major weapon if he could consistently attack the basket or kick it out when defenses collapse on him.

butlerway

Butler's bigs are just too inconsistent. Marshall looked extremely good against Marquette, scoring 24 points on 11-15 shooting. But he disappeared yesterday. As did Smith, who had looked really good against UNC. And I know Dunham took some tough shots, but with the exception of the one at the end of the shot clock and a couple desperation attempts at the end, you want him shooting those. He is that good of a shooter. It was just an off night, and based on how everything was very short and flat, I think his legs were just shot. He did look horrible on defense as well, but I have been complimenting his defense so far this year. I have no worries about him moving forward.

On the other end, Butler just didn't seem well prepared the first few minutes of the game. They were trapping the ball out top which left 3 point shooters wide open, which isn't a good thing versus Illinois. That put them in an early hole. Their defense actually adjusted well and was pretty good for most of the game, but Illinois just hit some tough shots and took advantage of every opportunity. They also got a few lucky bounces on deflected passes that were just morale killers during a few Butler runs.

duq81

You make a good point here.

Jonathan Watters

To me, the biggest problem is that Clarke is so much more dangerous as a spot up shooter than with the ball in his hands. When he is helping spread the floor spotting up, that is when butler's offense works. When he's trying to break down the defense himself and create for somebody else, butler looks like a mediocre team at best. Its a mediocre pg with mediocre teammates vs a mediocre pg with the best shooter in the country to pass the ball to.

If I'm brad Stevens, I give the ball to Roosevelt jones and never look back. There would be some early lumps, but long term it is the best and possibly only solution.

WH

If Jones is a good enough ball handler it might work.

I think Clarke can handle the role. He is a better penetrator than I expected. He is shooting well. Perhaps he just needs time to grow into the role. Hard to learn patience as a pg, especially for a player used to looking for his own shot. But he did do it against UNC.

Jonathan Watters

Don't get me wrong, I agree he can handle the role. He'll do fine as a point guard, but he can do so much more than "fine". My point is that butler is much, much better with him off the ball and forcing defenses' attention away from the ball. He still draws a lot of attention as pg, but whoever has the ball gets defensive attention. Put him off the ball and force all 5 defenders to identify him at all times, and everybody gets better.

antboy

This is probably stating the obvious, but pg's take a long time to develop, often more than a season after a switch (I've seen many guys get switched, and flame out). Jones would have to already be close as a pg to Clarke in my view, or else Butler is essentially building for next year.

It's too bad Butler lost that pg to eligibility so close to the start of the season (the curse of many an A10 team), he sounds like he would've been at least solid, allowing Clarke to play more sg.