Butler Basketball: Bulldogs Get Big Win on Road Despite 3-Point Shooting Struggles

By Eric Smith
http://www.rantsports.com/ncaa-basketball/wp-admin/post-new.php Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

The Butler Bulldogs (23-7, 10-5) are coming off of one of their worst losses in quite some time. The Bulldogs lost by 32 points on Saturday to the VCU Rams on the road. The loss dropped Butler down in the conference standings as they no longer have the first round bye in the Atlantic 10 Tournament.

It also dropped Butler out of the top 25 polls as well.

Butler returned to action tonight against a pretty good Massachusetts Minutemen (18-10, 8-7) team. Umass is on the bubble to make the NCAA Tournament and a win tonight would be solid on their resume.

The Bulldogs had other thoughts in mind despite a rare struggle from behind the arc.

Usually, Butler is a very good three-point shooting team. Shooting from beyond the arc and defense have been the “Butler Way” for  the last decade. With shooters like Roteni Clarke, Kellen Dunham and Alex Barlow on the team you wouldn’t think they’d ever shoot below 25-percent from long range.

Tonight they did.

When Butler shoots bad from three-point land they usually lose. Tonight they shot a dismal 15.8-percent on 3 for 19 shooting behind the arc. With those stats you would have thought they’d lost.

Clarke was the only Bulldog to connect from behind the arc as he hit the only threes for the team. He was 3 for 12 as all three came in the second half. Dunham was a horrid 0 for 6 while Andrew Smith was 0 for 1 himself.

This is something that Butler is going to have to fix going into the postseason. The Bulldogs host Xavier on Saturday in the regular season finale then take to the conference tournament next week.

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