Butler Wins for Tie at #1

by Landon Weldy

“I have to give Butler all the credit tonight. They came ready to play and whooped our butt,” said Cleveland State coach Gary Waters, referring to Butler’s domination over the Vikings on the basketball court last Friday.

Friday’s game held a big prize for the winner: Cleveland St. winning and standing alone at #1, or Butler winning and tying Cleveland for 1st. Until Butler recently lost to Milwaukee, Cleveland St. has been the only team to beat them in their conference, forming a rivalry between the two teams.

The game started off with Butler leading by 10 in the first three minutes of the game. As the game progressed, the Vikings began to come back slightly because of Norris Cole’s shots from downtown. The crowd became hysterical as they knew this would be a good game.

Matt Howard was 8 for 10 on free throws and 1 for 2 on three-pointers, adding up to a grand total of 17 points for the night, his average. There were two things that surprised me about the game though: Shelvin Mack only scored six points, whereas his average for the season is 14.4. His lack of points were made up by an unlikely 6’ 11” Sophomore named Andrew Smith who led the team with 22 points.

Butler obviously had the home-court advantage with 7071 crazy, screaming fans filling up Hinkle Fieldhouse to its brim.

Norris Cole led the Vikings with 26 points for the game, and closed the gap between Cleveland and Butler.

With 11:30 left in the game, and Butler only winning by 17, the Bulldogs put on their game faces and stopped Cleveland from scoring for 3 and-a-half straight minutes. As Cleveland St. began to foul more, Matt Howard repeatedly stepped up to the line and clinched the win for Butler; 79-56, tying them with the Vikings for the 1st place seed in the Horizon League.

“I thought we did a really nice job of defending as a team and attacking as a team,” said Butler coach Brad Stevens after Butler’s win on Friday night. “You have to handle their initial wave in order to attack them appropriately, and I thought our guards did a great job of that and our bigs did a great job of finishing.”