NCAA Tournament March Madness

#81 Butler

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Projection: likely out

Butler’s resume combines headline-grabbing neutral wins over Virginia and South Carolina and a resume-boosting road victory at Seton Hall with a string of damaging setbacks, most notably heavy losses to Connecticut and ugly defeats on the road at Marquette and Providence, and that split personality explains the projection: the offense can hang with strong opponents while the defense has been exposed often enough to leave the committee uneasy. The remainder of the schedule hands Butler clear chances to strengthen its case at home against Xavier and Creighton and to shore up résumé questions with results in road tests at Georgetown and Villanova plus a trip to DePaul, so sweeping the manageable home slate and answering at least one tough away test would move them firmly into contention, but as it stands the mixture of signature wins and damaging losses keeps them on the outside looking in.

Date Opponent Ranking Outcome
11/5Southern Indiana342W88-58
11/8IUPUI312W112-80
11/11Chicago St350W98-66
11/15@SMU38L87-85
11/21(N)South Carolina98W79-72
11/23(N)Virginia20W80-73
11/28Wright St147W94-69
12/2E Michigan229W84-68
12/6Boise St57L77-68
12/13Providence63W113-110
12/16@Connecticut9L79-60
12/20(N)Northwestern70W61-58
12/22NJIT303W101-52
12/30@Creighton78L89-85
1/3Villanova26L85-67
1/6St John's21L84-70
1/14@Xavier95L89-75
1/17@Seton Hall48W77-66
1/20DePaul112W87-80
1/23Marquette103W87-76
1/28@St John's21L92-70
1/31Georgetown83L77-64
2/4@Providence63L97-87
2/7@Marquette103L70-55
2/11Connecticut9L80-70
2/15Seton Hall4848%
2/18@Georgetown8339%
2/21Xavier9566%
2/25@Villanova2615%
3/4Creighton7860%
3/7@DePaul11250%