{"id":14424,"date":"2011-03-24T13:51:19","date_gmt":"2011-03-24T18:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14424"},"modified":"2011-03-24T13:51:19","modified_gmt":"2011-03-24T18:51:19","slug":"southeast-region-8-butler-bulldogs-vs-4-wisconsin-badgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/southeast-region-8-butler-bulldogs-vs-4-wisconsin-badgers-14424\/","title":{"rendered":"Southeast Region: (8) Butler Bulldogs Vs. (4) Wisconsin Badgers"},"content":{"rendered":"

(8) Butler Bulldogs at\u00a0 (4) Wisconsin Badgers<\/strong>
\nMar 24, 2011 at 9:57 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Wisconsin -4<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Wisconsin -4.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 129.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 128.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Wisc -185 \/ Butler +165<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Was -215 \/ Butler +180<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Shelvin Mack and Butler will try to Speed the tempo against the Badgers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s nothing new to Butler to be overlooked, but when they win a championship and suffer this much of a seeding regression just because of losing their top player in Gordon Hayward to the NBA, one has to wonder how a team could be that good and suddenly fade to irrelevance so quickly.\u00a0 The fact is:\u00a0 they haven’t.\u00a0 Butler has remained one of the top teams in the tournament and they are doing it with a variety of scorers and versatility in their offense.<\/p>\n

Butler coach Brad Stevens attributes it to the team’s unselfish style of basketball.\u00a0\u00a0 “I could sit up here and flatter them all day,” Stevens said. “I’ll telling you what — why wouldn’t you want to play a way where everybody is completely unselfish?<\/p>\n

Wisconsin, like many of the teams in the Big Ten, plays lockdown defense and they hold opponents to an average of 58.8 points per game.\u00a0 Given this, the total actually seems a bit high, but it will depend on if Butler can seize control of the pace or if Wisconsin will be able to keep things\u00a0 to a half court grind ’em out style.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wisconsin is 10-3 SU in their last 13 games and the total has gone OVER In 5 of Wisconsin’s last 6 games.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matchup Statistics:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Butler Overall Scoring 72.38<\/strong>
\nWisconsin Overall Defense 58.52<\/strong><\/p>\n

Butler Away Scoring\u00a0 68.59<\/strong>
\nWisconsin Home Defense 56.57<\/strong><\/p>\n

Butler Road Rebounds 33.35<\/strong>
\nWisconsin Home Rebounds Allowed 26.81<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wisconsin Home Scoring 71.48<\/strong>
\nButler Road Defense 65.76<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wisconsin Home Rebounds 31.81<\/strong>
\nButler Home Rebounds Allowed 32.88<\/strong><\/p>\n

Butler’s duo of Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack are going to receive most of the attention for Butler, and rightfully so.\u00a0 Both are the only players on Butler to play more than 30 minutes a game on average and to average in double figures in pionts with 16.7 for Howard and 15.6 for Mack.\u00a0\u00a0 Howard, a 6’8″ senior forward, also averages a team high 7.7 rebounds per game.\u00a0 Howard recorded 8 double doubles this year and Butler was 5-3 in those 8 games.\u00a0 Mack, a 6’3″ junior\u00a0 guard, leads the team in assists per game with 3.6 a game and putsu p 15.6 points per game.\u00a0 He shot 35.1% from three this year (74 of 211), but his overall field goal percentage was a bit low at 40.8%.\u00a0 Butler will obviously rely heavily on this duo and if even one of them suffers an ankle sprain or gets in foul trouble, Butler will be in serious trouble.<\/p>\n

Wisconsin is led by Jordan Taylor.\u00a0 Taylor, a 6’1″ junior point guard, averages 18 points per game and 4.8 assists per game.\u00a0 He scored in double figures in all but 2 Badgers games.\u00a0 He did struggle last game against Kansas, scoring just 12 points on 2 of 16 shooting from the floor.\u00a0 He played the entire game, too.\u00a0 He had 21 in the opening round against Belmont, but still shot under 50% from the floor at 5 of 13.\u00a0 He’ll have to improve his shot selection if he’s going to succeed at the next level in the NBA.\u00a0 Jon Leuer is also an instrumental part of the Badgers attack and his 6’10” frame is imposing.\u00a0 He scores a team high 18.7 points per game and leads the team in rebounding with 7.3 boards as well.\u00a0 A good three point shooter, and as mentioned a good rebounder, Leuer reminds me a lot of Troy Murphy.<\/p>\n

Butler really has a solid team and it’s rare that a #8 seed could be so touted, but all one must remember is that they are the defending runner-up for the tournament and even other top teams like Pittsburgh that have lost their top players to the NBA have fallen out, that doesn’t mean they will necessarily.\u00a0 Matt Howard might step up and show himself to be a prime time player in this game, and if he does, Butler will probably win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(8) Butler Bulldogs at\u00a0 (4) Wisconsin Badgers Mar 24, 2011 at 9:57 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Wisconsin -4 Current Line:\u00a0 Wisconsin -4.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 129.5 Current Total:\u00a0 128.5 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Wisc -185 \/ Butler +165 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Was -215 \/ Butler +180 It’s nothing new to Butler to be overlooked, but when they win a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1444],"tags":[4748,4689],"class_list":["post-14424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-headlines","tag-butler-bulldogs-basketball","tag-wisconsin-badgers-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14424"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14461,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14424\/revisions\/14461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}