Posted:
#1
November: 46-38, +5.20
November Leans: 39-38
December: 65-70, -9.45
December Leans: 67-79
January: 52-39, +15.80
January Leans: 40-37
February: 63-44, +65.90
February Leans: 56-49
March: 57-41, +77.15
March Leans: 34-35
Pitt/Butler
I pointed this out about a week ago when Delaware came into Hinkle, so let’s revisit. Butler’s offense sucks, but only in certain situations. And just as in the game where Delaware came in with a defense that doesn’t pressure or force turnovers, Pitt comes in with that same un-intensified defense as well. Here’s Butler’s season point totals against teams who don’t utilize strong pressure defense (using the bottom 100 teams):
75
69
75
63
63
57
The 75, 69, 75 in recent games are far different than the 63, 63, and 57 that took place earlier in the year. Why? Slightly different lineup. For a majority of the season Butler went with Stigall in the lineup b/c of his ability to shoot the ball. As of late, that just hasn’t been the case. He’s had an awful year shooting the ball, but the kid is extremely one-dimensional and that’s about all he can do is shoot the 3. So Stevens takes out Stigall, and inserts Hopkins, who sucks just as much from the 3-point line, but his versatility to score from somewhere else is what makes the difference within this offense, and you can see the drastic difference in the 3 games on the season he’s going up against the no-non pressure defense. No settling for shots, get into attack mode, and the offense wakes up. So, this offense should put up some points tonight against a Pitt defense that just doesn’t force turnovers, and uses little pressure, and at the same time sometimes going to a zone (which they probably do tonight to force Butler to hit outside shots). Again, the Butler offense is not all that great, but against a defense like this, I’d be willing to invest in the fact that they put up points. However, and this is where I go in an entirely different direction, I think Pitt scores more. In terms of the spot for Pitt, it really couldn’t set up any better. They’ve just played two super low possession ball games and scored 80+ in both of them against a similar style defense with what they’re expecting tonight. While these two teams come from different conferences, surprisingly the familiarity is there.
Let’s imagine a scenario that I’m going to imaginarily make up for giggles. Let’s say in some odd year, we’ll call it 2011, Pitt has a pretty good year and ends the year with something like a 27-5 record. The year is a pretty good year considering how tough the Big East is, so I’m going to give Pitt the #1 seed in the NCAA tournament. As for Butler, they had a pretty good year as well, so let’s give them the #8 seed. Both teams win their first round game, and are set for a pretty good match-up in the 2nd round. Nobody expects Butler to win, and let’s assume again that they’re just coming off a national title loss the previous year and losing their best player to the NBA. Since we are making stuff up here in this little paragraph, I’ll continue along the imaginary path of expecting the unexpected. Eight seed matches up with the one seed pretty well, and it’s a great ball game. We can skip the first half of this make-believe scenario, let’s just go to one of those wild endings that I never see happen. Stay with me here, it’s going to be so made up and sound so awkward that it may actually happen one of these days. Butler plays well, well enough to make a basket with about 2 seconds left to take a lead. Since I’m taking the over here in this match-up, we’ll call the score 70-69 and to this point the game has only gone to 57 possessions. So, we got Butler with a lead, and Pitt has the ball with 2 seconds. Let’s run down the court and try a half court shot, but before Pitt can get the shot off, they’re fouled! For the sake of an exciting finish, Pitt makes the first free throw, but they miss the second! Butler’s best big man pulls down the rebound, and we have a whistle! Butler must be calling timeout, right? Did they get the timeout? Oh man, the ref called a foul while Butler rebounded the basketball in a tie game! Butler makes the first free throw for a one-point lead and misses the second on purpose to give Butler the win. Wanna know how I come up with this stuff...
0
Hot Forum Topics
