Big East improves to 37
Butler used excellent hustle and defense to defeat UNC in the Bahamas. (USATSI)Coming into the season, the Big East was one of the biggest question marks in the entire NCAA. Outside of Villanova's strength, no one knew what to expect out of anyone in the league.
Butler was without its coach. Creighton was missing Doug McDermott for the first time in four years. St. John's had no depth after losing two frontcourt pieces. Providence and Xavier lost their do-everything lead guards Bryce Cotton and Semaj Christon. Georgetown was coming off of a losing conference season.
Though we're now only two weeks into the season, the conference has answered those questions in a way that not even the league's biggest optimist could have anticipated.
Today, it was the Butler Bulldogs kicking off the Battle 4 Atlantis in a big way, beating North Carolina 74-66. That improved the conference's record this season 37-2, with the only losses coming from Marquette.
But it's not just the record that's impressive for the league so far; it's the teams that the conference has defeated to accumulate that record. Over the last two nights, Villanova beat VCU and Michigan on a neutral floor in New York. Creighton beat chic preseason Final Four contender Oklahoma at home. Providence beat Florida State and Notre Dame at the Hall of Fame Tip-Off. Xavier has soundly beaten solid mid-majors Stephen F. Austin, Murray State and Long Beach State. Even Seton Hall won its early-season event, the Paradise Jam tournament in the Virgin Islands.
And now this win for Butler. This was a statement by interim coach Chris Holtmann, whose strategy was absolutely superb in this game. Even though North Carolina played particularly poorly today, he put his team in the perfect position to take advantage of the Tar Heels' missteps. He packed the paint, basically daring the Tar Heels to shoot over the Bulldogs, which they were unable to do as their 4-16 mark from 3-point range shows. Their defensive patience and principles showed, and Holtmann deserves respect for getting the Bulldogs well-drilled on that end.
The other thing Holtmann kept having his team do was crash the offensive glass as the North Carolina defense rotated into an abyss of nothingness. As the Tar Heels continued to over-rotate and then force themselves into awkward recovery positions, the Bulldogs hit the glass hard and came up with a staggering 29 offensive rebounds -- the most ever against a Roy Williams-coached UNC team. Those rebounds led to 19 points, which was the difference in the game. The Tar Heels will likely do a lot of work this week boxing out and staying principled with their rotations so that this positional problem doesn't happen again.
This is obviously a huge win for the Bulldogs, who weren't thought of as an NCAA Tournament hopeful coming into the season due to struggles in 2013-14, as well as questions about coach Brandon Miller. Heck, even our own Matt Norlander had them last in his Big East preview before the season. If Miller isn't to return to Butler -- as many seem to think is likely -- Holtmann has shown that he is the man for the job. He probably deserves the job regardless of Miller's status if he can get this team to the Tournament, which seems to be in reach.
And if Butler gets back to its winning ways, that helps the rest of the Big East.
Sure, the gaudy, ridiculous non-league record probably won't keep up even through the night. St. John's plays a tough game against Minnesota, Georgetown goes up against Florida, and DePaul could lose at any time to anyone. Eventually, someone is going to join Marquette in the loss column. Eventually, the league will come back down to earth and the ACCs and Big Tens of the world will take their rightful place as the best leagues in college hoops.
But for this specific moment in time, the Big East is on top of the college basketball world.
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