Insider: This loss puts Butler in perilous NCAA tournament position

David Woods
IndyStar
  • Providence at Butler, noon Saturday, Fox
Butler Bulldogs guard Sean McDermott (22) fights for a loose ball with Georgetown Hoyas guard Kaleb Johnson (32) at Hinkle Fieldhouse on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018.

INDIANAPOLIS – Welcome to bubble trouble, Butler Bulldogs.

It does not matter how good Georgetown really is, or how bad the matchup was. Bottom line: This was a damaging defeat.

The Hoyas’ 87-83 victory on Tuesday night changed Butler’s NCAA tournament prospects from probable to perilous. It wasn’t merely the outcome, either.

During a three-game losing streak, Butler has twice lost at Hinkle Fieldhouse to opponents shooting 59 percent. No. 4 Xavier did so in a 98-93 overtime victory, and so did Georgetown.

Coach LaVall Jordan did not want to elaborate on the harm this loss did to the Bulldogs’ resume, but he was otherwise expansive.

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BOX SCORE: Georgetown 87, Butler 83

“This one, we’ve really got to inspect and just think about who we want to be moving forward, how we’re going to play, and how we’re going to fight,” he said. “I think it’s going to be together. We have to do it. It can’t just be talk.”

Butler, 17-10 overall and 7-7 in the Big East, has its next two at home: Providence on Saturday and Creighton next Tuesday. Chances are that 9-9 makes the NCAA cut, and the Bulldogs can reach that by winning those two at home.

But they can’t win by doing what they did against Georgetown – i.e. starting with little urgency and allowing missed shots on their end to turn into opponents’ made shots on the other.

“Easy summation of it: The team that deserved to win, won,” Jordan said.

At no time did Butler offer resistance to Georgetown shooters. Georgetown (15-10, 5-9) is better than its record, no matter how feeble its nonleague schedule was.

Marcus Derrickson scored a career-high 27 points on 11-of-13 shooting. Graduate transfer Trey Dickerson, a 6-foot guard who helped South Dakota win its first Summit League regular-season title a year ago, scored 18 on 7-of-8.

Dickerson? He had been shooting 39 percent. He had not scored more than nine points in any game this season.

Over the past two years, the Bulldogs are 2-2 against Georgetown ... and probably should be 0-4. Twice Butler won in overtime. So perhaps this should not have been totally unexpected. Butler was lucky to overcome a 20-point deficit in the Dec. 27 meeting.

Moreover, Butler, which had made 66 3-pointers over the past six games, had zero in the second half. Final stats: 5-of-22.

During a four-game winning streak and losses to two Top 5 teams, Xavier and Villanova, the Bulldogs showed signs of building toward a March run. There was no evidence of that against Georgetown.

If this is a blip, it will soon be forgotten. If not, this season will be forgettable,

As Kelan Martin put it, the Bulldogs allowed missed shots on offense to influence them.

“That can’t dictate our defense,” Jordan said. “That’s where we’ve got to take the next step. I thought we had done that.”

Martin, who had shot 28-of-54 (52 percent) on 3s through the previous six games, was 1-of-9. He scored 22 points, just off his league-leading 23.5 average. Butler is too fragile for him to shoot so errantly, even if that is not his fault.

Tyler Wideman scored 19 points on 7-of-9 shooting as he continues on course to set a Big East record for field goal percentage. (He is at .704, compared to the record of .683.)

“Martin is a great player,” Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing said. “He’s been putting up some big numbers on some good teams of late. And our guys were locked in on him and made him work for everything he got.”

Of course, the Bulldogs made it interesting.

They were effective in a full-court press, as they were in Washington.  But Ewing said the Hoyas were better prepared for it, and they exploited that Butler tactic often enough to retain the lead. After the Hoyas went ahead 6-5, they never trailed.

Georgetown led 75-60 with less than 8 minutes left and 79-65 under 6 minutes. Butler trimmed that to 84-81 and 86-83, and had Kamar Baldwin shooting what would have been a tying 3-pointer with 5e seconds left. Baldwin missed, Butler fouled, and that was it.

Instead of calling timeout before Baldwin’s shot, Jordan let the players decide for themselves, as he has done all season.

“We trust our guys,” the coach said.

That is not where the game was lost anyway. It was lost earlier.

 Jordan repeated a time-honored Butler theme: The toughest team sets the rules.

“And they came in to start the game and were the tougher team,” Jordan said.

Butler must do likewise. If not, its two seniors, Martin and Wideman, won’t play in a fourth NCAA tournament.

Call IndyStar reporter David Woods at (317) 444-6195. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.