Butler

A year and a month ago at Belk Arena:

Things I liked about Butler: Those kids looked like college kids. They played defense. They won loose balls. They earned “slobber” points ...

Now: the Final Four in their own city.

The flip side of expectations

Luke Winn:

They’re at risk of doing what Stephen Curry and Davidson did in 2008-09, beginning the season in the Top 25 and then missing out on the dance. Butler’s overinflated preseason ranking was the fault of us, the pundits, who got too carried away and put them in the top 10, but Gordon Hayward & Co. are still good enough -- in the top 30-35 teams nationally -- to belong in the NCAA tournament field. If they don’t make it, that’s their fault.

I found myself wondering in Indianapolis if those kids from Butler were going to have fun this year. Still wondering.

Interesting little piece

McKillop on Stephen on NCAA.com: “He put Davidson on the national map and how many players can do that for a mid major program. Larry Bird did that for Indiana State back in the 70s. A host of players did that for Gonzaga. A number of players did that for Southern Illinois and Butler. Even when George Mason had that magnificent run, they didn’t have one guy that put them on the map. But here, it was Davidson and one player -- with and a group of teammates. But it was his face that was the face of the program.”

Perusing the game notes

Interesting factoid out of the Butler game: Davidson won all 20 games when it outrebounded its opponent in 2008-09. The Wildcats owned a 31-27 edge on the glass against the Bulldogs.

Left from Saturday

One more take on Saturday

Lefty’s Legacy:

The result against Butler last season provoked a hopeless feeling; last Saturday’s game, on the contrary, made me feel significantly hopeful. Last year’s game was a sloppy version of Davidson basketball, too reliant on one player who was off his game due to injury and fatigue; this year’s game featured more than a few moments of perfect Bob McKillop basketball -- an energized and balanced offense, crisp passing, smart cuts, excellent rebounding, and tough defense. I could be biased given the negativity that pervades my reflections on last season, but the team on Saturday reminded me more of 2008 than last year’s team ever did.

Somewhere in Indiana

Early morning in Middle America on the way to see the Wildcats.

Recapping Davidson at Butler

Storming the Floor: Anyone who expected Davidson to just curl up and die when Steph Curry left for the NBA hasn’t been paying attention.

Kyle and Damon have a chat

Over at Mid-Majority:

Damon: ... the Butler-Davidson game probably didn’t go as fans expected it to go. Davidson came out swinging...especially McKillop's kid.

Kyle: Davidson, as you noted during the game, got a lot of open shots and were able to answer every Butler basket for the first 30 minutes or so. Even though they’ve lost what’s-his-name, there’s still some real talent there. People shouldn’t forget they’ve got three very experienced seniors!

Damon: For a guy making his first start, Davidson’s Ben Allison impressed me. 13 points and 7 boards in 23 minutes is a great day for any big man. We’ll call him a "stud in the making." Strangely, their three senior starters (Archambault, Barr, Rossiter) were all kind of duds on Saturday.

Kyle: And full agreement on Mr. Allison. If he can produce like that, and if Frank Ben-Eze can recover from his surgeries and get some minutes, Davidson will have a formidable front line by the time SoCon play starts.

I’ll agree to disagree on Rossiter. He was solid. “Rebounded, defended, ran the court,” McKillop told me after the game. “Executed his stuff.”

Three headlines

New York: No. 11 Butler Is Sluggish in Its Opener. Baltimore: Sloppy win gives Butler work to do. South Bend: Butler wakes up, gets by Davidson.

My favorite text from this weekend

Came from William: I guess the fairly obvious Big Picture truth behind today and maybe days to come is that exceeding expectations is always more fun than the opposite.

Someone was paying attention

Rush the Court:

On the other side and typical of most Bob McKillop teams, Davidson played hard, generally shot the ball well (47% for the game), and rarely seemed to get rattled in the difficult environs of Butler’s home arena. Well worth the price of admission for the packed house today, the fans were treated to a couple of hours of intense basketball from two teams who aren’t very familiar with the meaning of the word half-assed. Once Butler gets situated to the new season, the Bulldogs will certainly be a force to be reckoned with on the national level, and for those in the SoCon who are assuming that Davidson will simply fade away now that Curry is playing for the Warriors, they should definitely think again ...

McKillop: “It’s like having a Broadway show and actors are now being challenged with playing different roles. Our leading singer, our leading dancer, our leading dramatic presenter is gone.”

Numbers I like

In flight back to Florida -- thanks to the generosity of the community -- and I’m looking again at the box score.

1. Five guys made four field goals.

2. 24 baskets. 17 assists.

3. Won rebounds 31-27. Bryant didn’t play his best game, obviously, but he did have six boards from his guard spot.

4. Won bench points 19-14 against a deep Butler team.

5. Shot 47.1 percent from the floor against a team that last year held its opponents to 38.5 percent.

The morning after

David’s gamer in the Indy Star:

Butler fans and college basketball analysts were eager to see the Bulldogs in action. Their coach was, uh, more subdued.

“I dreaded this game for six months,” Brad Stevens said.

Indeed, all his apprehensions -- that Davidson was seasoned, saucy and sizable -- were in evidence Saturday at Hinkle Fieldhouse. The 11th-ranked Bulldogs were thrown into the fray right away, and they responded by rallying from a 10-point deficit to win 73-62.

McKillop in the presser: “We had a 10-point lead, and all of a sudden we wanted to have a 20-point lead.” More: “New experiences for all of them. Different roles.” “Every one of them has adjusted to a new role.” “For us to get this kind of performance from them is very encouraging to me.” And on Butler: “That’s the great thing about this program. It’s a program. It’s not a season. It’s not a team. It’s a program.” Listen also to his radio chat with Kilgo.

Some notes from Butler

*** Watched Brad Stevens find McKillop in a Hinkle hallway after the game and extend his hand. “Big fan,” the young Butler coach said. “You guys are great.”

*** First time in Hinkle. The place is a treat. It’s not in a parking lot, it’s in a neighborhood, and it comes out of nowhere almost Fenway-style. Inside, the big windows up top let the natural light in, and the sounds of the bounce of the ball and the squeaks of the shoes sound the way they’re supposed to sound. And what happened after Davidson and Butler finished their game? Little kids. Rec league.

*** Tripp’s trip: He left his house in Charlotte at 2:50 a.m. and drove the 600 or so miles to Indianapolis, making only one stop, somewhere in Tennessee, he said, where he bought six Cracker Barrel biscuits and ate them all.

*** Radio man Ken Hall after the game: “I think this year’s team can be better than last year’s team.”

*** Enjoyed some postgame pizza and Blue Moons at Binkley’s with Waitress from Cats.com and his road-tripping daughter.

That was Davidson basketball

I’m not talking about production, although go look at the box, and go look at the balance. I’m not even so much talking about execution, although anybody who’s watched this program for any amount of time saw plays, cuts and reads they’ve seen before.

I’m talking more about … disposition. Demeanor. What did they look like?

From where I sat in Hinkle, they didn’t look lost, they didn’t look scared, they didn’t look overmatched, and they didn’t look like they were looking for the guy who’s no longer there. They looked right.

This might sound funny or strange, and hopefully I can think this through a little more over the coming weeks and months, but I’ll give it a shot after Game 1:

Last year was entertaining. Saturday afternoon was interesting. What was most interesting last year, at least to me, often was more the stuff going on around the court, and less the stuff going on actually on the court.

It’s kind of a difficult distinction to draw, because wider, outside attention isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it struck me at Hinkle on Saturday that nobody was there to ogle or gawk. The people who were there, 6,713 of them, were there to watch two good teams play good basketball. There wasn’t any see-to-be-seen.

I’m mixing senses here, but it makes me think about what Scott Fowler wrote the other day, the thing about “the new era at Davidson,” after Stephen, and how it’s going to be “a much quieter one.”

That depends on what you’re listening to, and what you’re listening for.

McKillop didn’t look quiet on Saturday. Not to me he didn’t. That bench didn’t look quiet. The five guys in red out there on the court didn’t look quiet either. And I don’t just mean sound. I mean energy. And it was an energy that was familiar. And it was familiar in a way that sometimes last year’s energy was not.

After the game, standing against a wall in a hallway at Hinkle, McKillop talked about the closed scrimmage last month at Texas and how his guys went down 15-4, quick, and then fought back, and how he saw that same thing in the second half on Saturday.

“I saw great fight,” he said.

A little later I talked to Rossiter outside the locker room.

“We saw what we could do,” he said.

And a little after that I talked to Fox on his way to the bus to the airport.

“We’re going to be who we are,” he said.

Stevens on Davidson

After the game: “It’s great opening against a team like this. You have to do everything well to compete against them. I’m talking about entering the ball out of bounds, moving from side-to-side. I’m a real admirer of the program. These are two good teams.”

Report from Hinkle

My DavidsonNews.net debut:

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Davidson men’s basketball team didn’t get a win Saturday afternoon, but what happened in the Cats’ season opener here at Hinkle Fieldhouse wasn’t a total loss.

The Wildcats played 10th-ranked Butler even for much of the game before losing 73-62 before a crowd of 6,713.

More to come of course.

The view

Here at Hinkle