Butler v. Duke

[romey]

Avery Jukes - OMG, I thought/hoped I'd never hear that name again.  He was on the Alabama squad that knocked out MU a few years back in round one.

[CTWarrior]

Close game between two very well coached teams, but not a great game.  Lots of missed layups and bunnies, particularly by Butler.  Butler's Howard is the master of the old school post moves, but they would be a lot better if he could make the 5 footer at the end of them.    

Officiating gets tougher and tougher as the years progress (well maybe not tougher, but it has evolved in ways that make the today's game look a lot different than it did 30 years ago).  A lot of Butler's great defense is used to be called "reaching" and was usually called a foul, and a lot of Duke's great offensive rebounding is plain ol' "over the back" and also used to be fouls.  I have a hard time blaming officials for things because the officiating has changed so much that it's hard to tell what is and isn't a foul.  It seems to be much more art than science these days.

I root against Duke mostly because they turned the wimpy "draw the charge" instead of "trying to block the shot" (which is much more entertaining) into an art form.  Well, that and their "regardless of what happens on the floor, we're better than you" attitude. But watching them last night and throughout this tournament they did a lot more challenging of shots and played more straight up good defense.  I still hate 'em, they got a too easy road, etc., but they were still a deserving champ.  And Singler, Smith and Scheyer are great college players, and hard not to like except for the uniforms.

[Norm]

The only times I have watched Butler is the last 4 games they played.    They are the most aggressive hackers I have ever seen.   There defensive strategy seems to be grab until it is called.   I was completely neutral last night but thought the officials could have fouled out the entire Butler team.   But they were consistent.   It was a very physical game, but I thought Butler was just a bunch of hacks. 

I don't know if I'd say they were just a bunch of hacks, but they definitely got away with a lot of fouls, as I pointed out in the initial post of this thread. Kudos to them though for making it that far.

[Canadian Dimes]

Why intentiaonally miss the last free throw?  With 3.6 seconds left the other team basically has to shoot a three so why intentionally give your team only a two point lead?  try to make the three and then worst case you are tied and go to OT.  Dumb play I understand the clock starts  but even if he makes it Butler or any team basically runs the same play or a deeper pass where a guy has to take a heavily defended deeper than normal rushed 3. 

Dumb play.

I thought it was a decent game for a January night , but when was the last time a titel game had so many non pros.  A game in the 50's.  Duke handled Butler poorly and put up poor shots.  Sheyer took a bunch of dumb shots, someone needs to tell them a fade away 18 footer off a curl is not a good shot.

[butchbadger]

I thought it was a terrible game because it was so low scoring...like a Big 10 game.  Only high scoring games are interesting.

[LON]

I thought it was a terrible game because it was so low scoring...like a Big 10 game.  Only high scoring games are interesting.

Bo cooled on scoring points?

It was low scoring because no one could finish.  Real entertaining.

[mugrad99]

I thought it was a terrible game because it was so low scoring...like a Big 10 game.  Only high scoring games are interesting.

It was low scoring because both teams played great defense, even though the game was high tempo, just like the Badger vs Cornell game

I was waiting for the first whiny little Badger coming over, spouting the "we play like that too, why don't you like us?"  Congrats......

[Maryland Warrior]

Is it my imagination or was Zar's final shot against Washington from the same spot as HAYWARD's last night?  Talk about foreshadowing!

[butchbadger]

Simply pointing out the frequent stupidity of judging the quality of any basketball game by the number of points scored.  Many fans here must think the D league is the greatest.


And Indee I know enough about basketball to know that UW doesn't play defense or offense anything like those teams style-wise.

[MUBurrow]

edit. deleted for not having read the whole threat like the hypocrite i am.

[d6]

Why intentiaonally miss the last free throw?  With 3.6 seconds left the other team basically has to shoot a three so why intentionally give your team only a two point lead?  try to make the three and then worst case you are tied and go to OT.  Dumb play I understand the clock starts  but even if he makes it Butler or any team basically runs the same play or a deeper pass where a guy has to take a heavily defended deeper than normal rushed 3. 

Dumb play.

I thought it was a decent game for a January night , but when was the last time a titel game had so many non pros.  A game in the 50's.  Duke handled Butler poorly and put up poor shots.  Sheyer took a bunch of dumb shots, someone needs to tell them a fade away 18 footer off a curl is not a good shot.

+1

Why on earth miss that last free throw intentionally with 3.6 seconds left?  I could see if there was under 2 seconds or something, but there was enough time for Hayward to get across the mid-court stripe and get a decent shot off.  Would have loved to see him hit it, and then see what the reaction to Coach K's decision would have been like......

[Canadian Dimes]

Simply pointing out the frequent stupidity of judging the quality of any basketball game by the number of points scored.  Many fans here must think the D league is the greatest.


And Indee I know enough about basketball to know that UW doesn't play defense or offense anything like those teams style-wise.

Butch I had no rpobelm with the score the score was simply an indicator of the game ..in the sense that there were very few pros out there.  And as you know it takes pros to score, so you can better understand your two most likely pros in LEuer and Hughes are often the ones that need to score, in fact they are the best players and have the best ability to put themselves in a postion to score and then execute.  The court was full of guys last night that could not score.  Was the defense good sure but there were also alot of guys that could not score.  Simply compare that to last year or years in the past when there are literally 5-6-7-8-9 future NBA players or lottery picks on the court at any one time.  Those guys can get shots and score them. 

bottom line is there was not that much talent on the floor and the score was very low.  Now if you take that persoanlly I am sorry.  i just did not think there was very much talent on the floor apparently some people relish those types of games.  Additonally, i think Duke really hurt themselves with bad shot selection 2 or 3 different stretches Duke ( once in the first and then a couple in the second half) had 5 or 6 point leads and came down and put up 2-3-4 stupid turnaround fade aways in a row that led to Butler climing back in.  Duke could have finished them off a few times and took bad shots.