To see the previous teams ranked in the 82 in 72 series, please see below:
71. Princeton Tigers
74. Oklahoma Sooners
75. West Virginia Mountaineers
76. Georgia Bulldogs
77. UAB Blazers
80. Missouri Tigers
Additionally, here is where each of our college basketball analysts had Butler ranked:
| Steven | Maxwell | Kam | Cody |
| 59 | 79 | Unranked | 60 |
After a season where Butler was returning just 8.8% of the minutes from the previous season and ranked 10th in the Big East preseason coaches’ poll, the Bulldogs are returning 57.6% of their minutes from last season. Despite a 9-11 record in Big East play last season, Butler had big wins over teams like Creighton and Marquette.
Butler is also returning their top two leading scorers from last season in Pierre Brooks and Jahmyl Telfort; however, DJ Davis and Jalen Thomas have graduated while starting point guard, Posh Alexander, transferred to Dayton. To replace Alexander, Butler acquired Tulane transfer, Kolby King. To fill the remaining open spot in the starting lineup, the Bulldogs added redshirt senior, Patrick McCaffery from Iowa, as well as Maryland transfer, sophomore Jamie Kaiser Jr. Additionally, I anticipate Finley Bizjack to be a major breakout off the bench. Bizjack, a star in the FIBA 3×3 U23 Nations League, demonstrated how well he can shoot the ball and how polished the scoring ability is. Bizjack was named to the Big East All-Freshman team this season. With that said, in addition to Landon Moore, this Butler rotation goes legitimately eight deep. Last season, only 23.7% of Butler’s minutes were bench players, while the division one average was 30.8%, ranking the Bulldogs towards the bottom of the country. The newly found depth will be a welcomed addition.
This Butler team also has size. Last year’s backcourt of Posh Alexander and DJ Davis are each 6’0″ and 6’1″ respectively. While Kolby King is a replacement in the backcourt, he is just 6’2″. However, alongside King are wings with legitimate size in 6’6″ Brooks and 6’7″ Telfort, plus 6’9″ McCaffery and 7’0″ Andre Screen. While Kaiser is the size of a true wing as well and Bizjack is 6’4″, this Butler team is a lot bigger than most teams in the Big East.
Once Butler hired Thad Matta, their strength of schedule has been one of the tougher ones in the country. Aside from their grueling Big East schedule, they have matchups set against SMU at home, @ Houston in the Big East/Big 12 Challenge, and neutral site games against Northwestern, Mississippi State/UNLV, and Wisconsin. Going into the Big East tournament, Butler could be a 20 win team and be dancing in March. This will likely come down to the defense. Despite how fun the offense might be, defense is typically the bread and butter for Thad Matta coached teams. With 19 seasons of head coaching experience, 13 of those teams had a top 30 defense according to KenPom. This trend should continue this year. Part of the defensive scheme is not fouling, as Butler’s opponents rarely got to the free throw line since Matta took over. Additionally, on the offensive side of the ball, Butler shot 78.8% from the free throw line last year, but they didn’t get to the line much themselves last season.
This Butler team will be similar to last year’s team, likely finishing around 7th or 8th in the Big East and being a true bubble team. However, the upside of this team, on both sides of the floor, is NCAA tournament potential. And it’s extremely difficult to ever count out a Thad Matta coached team, and he proved why last season.
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