Milwaukee 86 Butler 80

[Xavgrad08]

This is the second time Milwaukee has beaten Butler this year. Butler is now 6-3 in the Horizon league having also lost to Wright State. Butler has a big away game coming up vs Valparaiso who is currently tied for first in conference. If Butler losses one more conference game I think they will have to win the conference tourney to go dancing.

[Xavier]

Butler already has to win conference to get in.

[jonz04]

according to Joe Lunardi, "Butler stays in the field, for now, as the last at-large above the First Four. Bulldogs have reached the limit for 'bad losses', however."

[SixFig]

I'm assuming they also have a bracketbuster game, which could be a huge win (or loss) for them.

The slow descent back to mediocrity...

[Titanxman04]

Seems like their tale of a Final Four run is much like George Mason's. They get there, have the world rooting for them against Duke, and then slowly slip back into a joke.

Meanwhile, we're starting to hit our stride...again. We're starting to show the league that we're the top dog...again. We're hitting on all cylinders which is making us one hell of a team...again. And most importantly, the world is starting to realize that come March, Xavier will be dancing...again.

Consistency is a hell of a lot better than one dumb-luck year.

Suck it Butler. Thanks for tanking for us.

We're both the flagships of our own conferences...the difference is our flagship has a steel hull, cannons all over, and runs over smaller vessels. Your flagship has a single sail and a manual rudder.

[Masterofreality]

Milwaukee abjectly sucks.

I watched their game against Loyola and Loyola, who is mediocre, beat them in Milwaukee.

Brad Stevens may wish that he had taken those big money offers last year.

Travis "Steal" keeps ripping recruits out of Central Indiana. We're disemboweling Butler piece by piece.

[smileyy]

Seems like their tale of a Final Four run is much like George Mason's. They get there, have the world rooting for them against Duke, and then slowly slip back into a joke.

They have more durability and staying power than that. But you don't abruptly lose a player like Gordon Hayward and keep rolling uninterrupted. You could probably draw a parallel to the 2002-2003 XU team if David F. West had left early.



Consistency is a hell of a lot better than one dumb-luck year.


The last 7 seasons of Butler Basketball:

2002-03 Todd Lickliter 27-6 14-2 NCAA Sweet Sixteen
2003-04 Todd Lickliter 16-14 8-8 -
2004-05 Todd Lickliter 13-15 7-9 -
2005-06 Todd Lickliter 20-13 11-5 NIT 1st Round
2006-07 Todd Lickliter 29-7 13-3 NCAA Sweet Sixteen
2007-08 Brad Stevens 30-4 16-2 NCAA Second Round
2008-09 Brad Stevens 26-6 15-3 NCAA First Round
2009-10 Brad Stevens 33-5 18-0 NCAA Runner up

I'm not seeing a lot of dumb luck there. They don't yet have the consistency XU has, but they're no flash in the pan either.

[xudash]

Their own board is questioning their ability to sustain success.

They are particularly worried about next year - the post Howard era.

Everything they've been able to accomplish has primarily been a result of a combination of a few, key forces:


Butler having enough of a program foundation to recruit well enough to own their league for a while.
The way the HL manages member budgets.
Butler's ability to be a mini-Xavier when it comes to replacing coaches.


Howard, Hayward and Mack - primarily - created a perfect storm. Combined with solid, fundamental basketball, they were able to go nuts for a while.

But we are now in the here and now. Hayward is gone. Howard will be gone. They have some talent, including Mack if he stays, but they're beginning to thin out.

And 4 star recruits and up aren't going to matriculate in Indy just so they can say they did it the Butler way.

This has always been about sustainability with me. They are not well positioned to sustain success in the long run. They don't have the finances for it.

BTW, I don't need a comparison of Butler to some existing dimwit A10 program. This isn't about replacing crap with a "step-up" type program. If the subject is conference re-alignment, then it's about optimization, not simply trading up to some shaky level.

[smileyy]

Basically, it seems like Butler needs to out-recruit their program status, much like XU had to do for quite a while. It's not easy to do. I suspect that if you reset the clock to 1990 over and over again, 60% of the outcomes would be with XU being a bottom-of-the-barrel A-10 team, 20% of the results would be XU being the big dog in a small conference, and maybe 10% of the outcomes would be the Xavier where it is today.

It takes both the dedication of an entire athletic department and some good breaks along the way to make the transformation XU has. If anyone could do it, everyone would have done it. Instead, only 2 teams (XU, Gonzaga) definitively have.