Myth Busted - Butler vs. Bradley

[tornado]

Ok, ok....so I know there are a couple threads already saying we should be like Butler...but I think this needs to be exposed........
butler is a fine, fine team, and in no way is anything here meant to dis on Butler or bring them down....they have done a good job in recent years.

Here is the quote that prompted my effort to put this argument to rest...

... Butler's players are just as young as we are.......

The comparable private-school BU in Indianapolis starts three freshmen and a sophomore and is breezing..

three freshmen and two sophomores playing the majority of Butler's minutes

(which of course is not true....FULL TIME starter Will Veasley and one of their most used players is a junior)

Now the facts...........

1) Bradley's TWO most senior players are BOTH injured and not playing (Sam Singh and Andrew Warren), and the guy with the most career minutes and the highest returning scoring average (Warren) hasn't played all year and isn't likely to....while the most experienced returning guard available (Sam Maniscalco) has also been hobbled by injury this season.
Butler has absolutely no such losses or injuries whatsoever to deal with.

2) Both Butler and Bradley have FIVE players averaging more than 20 minutes per game or more....so both team rely heavily on just 5-6 players.
BUT BU has had to deal with significant injuries to one of their main five (Maniscalco) and two of their other significant players (Egolf & Singh) .....none of Butler's have, PLUS...Bradley has also lost for the season two guys who would have been starters (Egolf, Warren)!

3) Butler's lineup has one guy starting who has been a Butler regular and who has been averaging 15 mpg for 3 years now...Bradley is going exclusively with 1st & 2nd year guys, and guys like Sam Singh who have virtually never played before.

4) their starting center (Matt Howard) played full time last season and started nearly every game last year and this year...
We don't have even ONE single guy who had ever previously started even ONE single game at center or even at any position in college basketball now playing post positions.....so no doubt Butler has TONS more experience in the paint.

5) Butler's first two guys off the bench (Avery Jukes and Zach Hahn) are a junior and a sophomore, who both have significant experience from the past year or two.
Bradley comes off the bench with Taylor Brown, Darian Norris, and even Anthony Thompson, not one of which has ever seen a D-I floor before this season.

6) as noted elsewhere, recruiting is always easier if you sit right in the middle of a city of 1 million, and one of the Top 25 TV markets, and if the other midmajors instate provide no real competition to recruiting.
Bradley simply does not have any of those blessing...so we just have to do the best we can with what we have.
AND, I believe, recruiting has been as strong as every with numerous 2-3 Star recruits, more players of that caliber in the past 2-3 years than in the previous 2-3 decades.

7) lastly, BU does have help coming in the form of Wilkins, Prosser, Knezevic, Harris....good recruiting and fine players already committed and/or signed.
Butler has only one player committed and signed for the future...so time will tell........

[Indy_BB]

This thread is the absolute opposite of the truth. Here is reality...



Butler is nearly a year younger than Bradley on a minutes-weighted and points-weighted age perspective. (All stats from ESPN)

[braves12]

As Bill O'Reilly says "The spin stops here".

[it's boogie time]

So the mythbusted is busted?

[tornado]

?? not sure what all those .0001999 numbers are all about...
I guess you can believe whatever you want
but please point out which comment of mine is less than 100% accurate.,
as I noted you failed to do that.

[Indy_BB]

What are you talking about? Your position isn't even close to 5% right, much less 100% right. I am sorry that you are not able to do the math for weighted averages, but I can assure you that it is right.

[ph]

I'd say there are coaches that could handle this situation (training the new guys to fill in more productively) better than what we've seen.

However, since we are hovering around .500 Our coaching staff has, at least, progressed to the point we have not completely tanked (going 1-9) in the face of injuries..

[ER3]

I'd say there are coaches that could handle this situation (training the new guys to fill in more productively) better than what we've seen.

However, since we are hovering around .500 Our coaching staff has, at least, progressed to the point we have not completely tanked (going 1-9) in the face of injuries..

When playing a schedule full of mediocre to absolutely awful teams like FGCU, UMKC, SEMO, UW-M, and ETSU...I'd say it would be nearly impossible for us to not at least be around the .500 mark...regardless of who was injured, who was coaching the team, etc...

I don't really know how we could look at the season so far and call it progress. Seems like same old, same old to me...

[BUFAN]

This thread is the absolute opposite of the truth. Here is reality...



Butler is nearly a year younger than Bradley on a minutes-weighted and points-weighted age perspective. (All stats from ESPN)

Good job indy, there is no myth to the fact that Butler is a much better coached, much better program than Bradley. They have a nice system and simply recruit into it, unplug one player and plug in another. When was the last time Bradley addressed any inefficiency?

[ph]

When playing a schedule full of mediocre to absolutely awful teams like FGCU, UMKC, SEMO, UW-M, and ETSU...I'd say it would be nearly impossible for us to not at least be around the .500 mark...regardless of who was injured, who was coaching the team, etc...

I don't really know how we could look at the season so far and call it progress. Seems like same old, same old to me...

But I believe we've lost to some awful MVC teams due to injuries in the past..

We have been forced to play EM enough that the "D1 light clicked" I wished we could say the same about AT..

[tornado]

wow-- are some people's views so narrow that they cannot see what's actually be talked about??

NOWHERE have I said Butler isn't a young team...NOWHERE, yet that's the ONE and ONLY thing that those stats and Indy appear to be making as their argument.
Good for you, as you just figured out using ESPN's stats, that I am exactly correct...both teams are playing with a lot of young players, and even though Butler
has a lot of young players, there are still stark differences that some seem to ignore.

The more comprehensive thought...something missed by many, is that there are substantial differences in many, many area, beyond just the fact that BOTH Butler and Bradley field young teams who play a lot of freshmen.

Butler's main players have as much experience as BU's and way more so in the paint, and the argument about how Butler has rebuilt better than BU ignores the obvious and blatant differences in situations such as recruiting, players leaving early for the NBA, and the degree of significant injuries the two teams have had.

none of the funny stats shown seems to have any variables capable of seeing byond just chronoligical age.
also juco kids are NOT players with 4 years of D-I experience, so the formula falls flat there.

[Scouter]

Tornado, the list of reasons Bradley isn't as good as Butler may have some truthiness to it, but it doesn't address any of the quoted parts you pointed out at the start of your post.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SaintLouBrave22
... Butler's players are just as young as we are.....


Using a point system (one for freshman, two for sophomores, etc.), the average for Butler's players is 1.93. Bradley's is 1.75. Pretty comparable, I'd say.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Reynolds
The comparable private-school BU in Indianapolis starts three freshmen and a sophomore and is breezing..

This is true. Butler has had the same starting five for all 10 games -- Mack (Fr.), Howard (So.), Hayward (Fr.), Veasley (Jr.) and Nored (Fr.). By my count, that's three freshmen and a sophomore.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirk Wessler
three freshmen and two sophomores playing the majority of Butler's minutes


Butler has combined to play 2,000 minutes this year. The freshmen Wessler refers to are Mack (298 min.), Hayward (281) and Nored (232). The sophomores are Howard (281) and Zach Hahn (183).Add it up and you get 1,275 minutes, which, according to my math, would be a majority.

[JC43]

Is the fact that they have hired long time assistants to replace head coaches who leave a factor to be considered? Is it possible that coaching plays a factor in how good they are?

[tornado]

Geez....scouter......read my lips...

BUTLER IS a young team....nowhere have I said otherwise.
But Bradley is also a young team - playing a whole lot of 1st and 2nd year players with no more DI experience and BU has had to deal with much more of the unexpected and unanticipated (injuries)
which I believe makes it a bit less than logical to be saying we should be like Butler and we should use Butler as a guide to how we have been doing.

[Scouter]

Geez....scouter......read my lips...

BUTLER IS a young team....nowhere have I said otherwise.
But Bradley is also a young team - playing a whole lot of 1st and 2nd year players with no more DI experience and BU has had to deal with much more of the unexpected and unanticipated (injuries)
which I believe makes it a bit less than logical to be saying we should be like Butler and we should use Butler as a guide to how we have been doing.

So basically your argument rests on the fact that Andrew Warren and Will Egolf are injured? That's a pretty weak argument.