Butler basketball beats Marquette, boosts NCAA tournament resume
Butler’s road upset of No. 12 Marquette was an example of how simple college basketball can be, and how complex.
Yet there is no overstating importance of the Bulldogs’ 69-62 victory at Milwaukee on Wednesday night.
As CBS Sports Network insider Jon Rothstein put it:
“If you watch Butler play, it looks like a team that should be in the NCAA tournament.”
That was moments after his studio colleague, former Butler guard Shelvin Mack, was rubbing his hands and saying, “Go Dawgs.”
It was a signature win for this team, this program and this coach, Thad Matta. Butler was an 11.5-point underdog.
The Bulldogs (11-5, 2-3) ended Marquette’s 19-game Fiserv Forum streak, the second-longest active home streak in the nation. Marquette (11-5, 2-3) had its streak of 20 consecutive Big East home wins stopped one short of what would have been a conference record.
It was Butler’s first win at Marquette since 2018, and the highest-ranked team it has beaten on the road since a 74-66 win at No. 2 Villanova on Feb. 22, 2017.
Pierre Brooks II and Landon Moore each scored 11 of their 14 points in the second half. Jalen Thomas had 10 points and a career-high 14 rebounds, and Posh Alexander added 10 points, seven assists and five steals.
Matta has a hall-of-fame resume, and now the second season of his second Butler tenure has a resume-builder. Butler instantly climbed from 66 to 52 in KenPom rankings, and the NET ranking (used to select and seed NCAA tournament) will follow suit. If you’re in the 40s, you’re in the mix.
It is all meaningful, especially considering Marquette was first and Butler 10 (one point from last) in the preseason poll of Big East coaches.
Butler plays Big East co-leader Seton Hall (11-5, 4-1) at noon Saturday in the annual basketball alumni game at Hinkle Fieldhouse. And Butler will be a betting favorite (or even) in five more January games.
“We’ve been right there in a lot of games this season,” Matta said. “I continue to see growth. We had three really good days leading into this game.”
In two losses, Butler led at Providence until a tying 3-pointer to end regulation and led No. 4 Connecticut by seven points in the second half. Butler made sure at Marquette, going from down by 11 to up by 13.
The simple explanation: Butler shot 10-of-22 on 3-pointers (46%) to Marquette’s 5-of-31 (16%).
The more nuanced one: A relatively porous defense (122 nationally in points allowed per possession) was made stouter by adjustment.
Matta signaled as much when a courtside microphone caught his address during a sideline huddle.
“Fellas, here’s the thing. They’re never done dribbling,” he said. “You can never stop guarding the basketball.”
Afterward, Matta said Butler finally contained Marquette ballhandlers, thus not forcing defenders to rotate as much. That can be a difference of a few inches, but such attention to detail has characterized Butler since the 1990s under former coach Barry Collier. And Matta succeeded Collier.
“We didn’t have to over-help because we guarded the ball better,” Matta said. “That made our close-outs a little bit shorter.”
Marquette repeatedly missed open looks, as Matta told Marquette coach Shaka Smart. Tyler Kolek, the reigning Big East player of the year, scored two points on 1-of-13 shooting (0-of-7 on 3s). It was uncharacteristic.
So if there was an element of luck involved, well, the Bulldogs were due for some.
“I’ve said this from day 1, the exhibition game,” Matta said. “Our margin for error is slim.”
Marquette might have built a 20-point halftime lead over Butler, which committed 10 first-half turnovers. But the Golden Eagles’ 1-of-12 shooting on 3s allowed Butler to stay within 35-28 through 20 minutes.
Butler’s three top scorers for the season — Brooks, Jahmyl Telfort, DJ Davis — scored a cumulative seven points in the first half. The Bulldogs have no superstar — maybe no all-conference first- or second-team player — so must win with balance, or with different players holding the hot hand on a different night.
In the second half, the hot hands belonged to Brooks and Moore. An 11-0 run turned a four-point deficit into a 47-40 lead, and the Bulldogs expanded that to 62-49 on Moore’s bounced-in 3-pointer.
Davis, who had averaged 23 ppg over three games, finished with four points.
From stints at Butler, Xavier and Ohio State, the 56-year-old Matta has too many consequential wins to recount. He has taken teams to two Final Fours, four Elite Eights, six Sweet 16s, five Big Ten championships, four Big Ten tournament titles.
But you would have to go back to 2001 at Kansas City, Mo. — where the Bulldogs beat Wake Forest 79-63 for its first NCAA tournament win in 39 years — to find a Matta win as important as this one to Butler.
“It’s a fun group to be around,” he said of the 2024 version. “Even in the bad times, it’s a good, fun group to be around.”
