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INDIANAPOLIS — Butler had lost five of their last six games coming into their match-up with DePaul on Saturday. The rough patch was certainly not for lack of effort on the Dawgs’ part.
Nevertheless, Butler needed a win, and they found it in a 74-60 victory over the DePaul Blue Demons.
“This was a good team win for us,” head coach Thad Matt said. “We can’t play like we think we are better than we are. When we returned to practice (this week) we got into pretty hard practices. I wanted us to play with that energy. We had to win this basketball game today and glad to see the guys got the job done.”
In the early going, the match-up was reminiscent of their previous game, an 85-71 result at Xavier in which the Dawgs had a good start getting out to an early lead. But, they ended up squandering it after the game’s first media timeout.
The same thing happened against DePaul as Butler led 9-5 going into the under-16, only to give the lead up at 14-11 into the under-12. At this point versus Xavier, Butler keeled over with poor shots and turnovers.
Not this time.
The Dawgs answered with a run led off with a three-pointer from Pierre Brooks III, who finished with 20 points. The 10-2 swing gave Butler the lead back. A lead they would never relinquish for the duration.
The invaluable aspect of the game was confidence… confidence that the Bulldogs had lacked over the last three games. It returned in the form of DJ Davis, who struggled in that stretch not making a single shot from three.
He hit a thunderous shot from five feet behind the arc at the end of the half that nearly blew the 96-year-old roof off of Hinke Fieldhouse.
“He hit that first (three) I nearly threw my arm out of my socket because I was so excited for him,” Matta said. “We need DJ to be who he is, not scoring 25 points (a game), I was impressed with his defensive play today. He had five or six steals. The ‘D’ for DJ stands for defense!”
“It felt great,” Davis said of seeing that three-pointer go in. “It felt good to just get back in my groove, but the coaching staff let me know my last few games, defensively, haven’t been great. I kind of let my offense dictate that since I hadn’t made a shot my last couple of games. It wasn’t going to be a third game.”
Davis ended the night with 17 points, the most he has scored in the last two games in which he did not hit a single field goal.
The steals were paramount in the second half. As a team, Butler accrued a new season-high 11 steals off of 14 DePaul turnovers.
Posh Alexander helped the Dawgs stay focused with 17 points of his own, but he also had a team-high six steals and six assists.
The victory comes at a crucial point of the season for Butler as they hope to build momentum now eight games into Big East play. The Dawgs have a stretch of continued alternating road and home games against Georgetown, Villanova, #18 Creighton, and #1 UConn. Matta said the momentum from this win will pay dividends as the maintain their confidence heading into the back half of conference play.
“We’ve gotta build. We have to get some rest here. We have a huge week coming up,” Matta said.
