JEFF ALLEN: DOES BUTLER RATE A LOOK IN TONIGHT’S BIG EAST FEATURE VS. SETON HALL ???
With conference tournaments already in progress, the power conferences look to improve their resumes and tournament seeds
in the final week of their regular seasons. Tonight we feature a Big East game with major conference and Big Dance implications
as the (21-7) Seton Hall Pony Pirates travel to Indianapolis to face the (19-11) Butler Bulldogs. While both teams appear to be locks
to Dance at the moment, urgency is definitely on the side of Bulldogs who with a loss here and in their regular season finally against
Marquette coupled with a first-round loss in the Big East tournament could find the Bulldogs on the outside looking in. At this writing,
the current Vegas line is Butler -4.5 with the total 147.
Things are haven’t been this good in South Orange since the Andrew Gaze teams of the mid-90’s. Kevin Willard has this team playing
great and the Pirates have in fact won eight of their last nine and are off a big win over No.5 Xavier. Now granted, Xavier was comatose
after knocking off No.1 Villanova mid-week, the Pirates did put on a display offensively in averaging 1.17 points per possession, no mean
feat against a pretty good Musketeer defense. Seton Hall has four players averaging in double-figure led by their backcourt tandem of
Isiah Whitehead (17.1) and Khaddem Carrington (13.6). Seton Hall has a nice mix of youth and experience starting two seniors and three
sophs.
Butler has had an up and down year, especially in Big East play where the Bulldogs are just 8-8. After cruising through a pedestrian non-
conference schedule that included wins over Temple and Purdue with a loss at Miami, the Butler has just found it’s stride of late winning
five of seven. Chris Hoffman’s bunch leads the conference in scoring with three players averaging better than 14+ ppg. This is also a team
that slacks on defense and allows much to many offensive rebounds to the opposition that generally result in easy second chances. Kelan
Martin (16.1, 6.6) is a 6’6″ 235 pound combo 3-4 that must be watched at all times. Kellen Dunham (16.2) does most of the outside damage
and shoots at better than 40% from behind the arc.
At this writing, Joe Lunardi currently has Seton Hall as a No.8 seed in the Midwest and Butler as a No.10 seed in the South. With a win here
and in their season finale at DePaul, Seton Hall would almost certainly climb into the Top 25 and improve it’s position to a 5-6 seed. Butler
needs wins of any kind to keep things out of the hands of the judges. The Hall has won three straight conference road games but are just
1-5 vs. Butler in league play including an 81-75 decision in New Jersey on February 10th, the Pirates last loss. The number is somewhat
dicey (Seton Hall 10-1 this year as a dog) but the total somewhat high. Seton Hall has been a low ball (17-10-1 under) all year and Butler
seems to get serious in March where all eight of their games the last two years have gone under the total. Might look to pass the side and
grab a small piece on the under in what figures to be a hard fought lower scoring game.