Butler Gifts Austin Peay Their First Win Over 'Power 6' Team In 13 Years

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INDIANAPOLIS — In their first two games, Butler has committed a whopping 35 turnovers. Sixteen of them came in their match-up with Austin Peay on Friday.

Meant to be one of those games for Butler to win early in the season as a way to keep preparing for conference play, the Dawgs figured out they have a lot more issues to work out than their mid-season form as they were simply outplayed and, quite frankly, dominated in a 68-66 loss.

“The way we played, the pressure they applied, we didn’t handle it well,” said head coach Thad Matta. “They punched us early and we just didn’t fight back. They made us not ready to play tonight.”

LJ Thomas was simply unstoppable for Austin Peay as he would finish the night with  29 points, the first of which he scored early in the first half as Butler could not get in any sort of rhythm on offense.

Leading 15-12 with 13 minutes to play in the half, Butler seemed only to be able to keep Austin Peay immediately behind them, but the Governors were not amenable to staying there.

Out of a timeout, Austin Peay commenced on an 8-0 run as Butler once against wracked up turnover after turnover, which led to point after point for the Governors.

Still, the Bulldogs showed some grit clapping back with a 12-2 run over their own on three made threes, two of which were made by Patrick McCaffery, who had a breakout night in his young career with Butler. He’d end up with 23 points to lead the Bulldogs.

Still, the lack of consistent guard play by the Dawgs reared its head as Austin Peay gained its composure and clamped down on Butler forwards Jahmyl Telfort and Pierre Brooks, while also completely shutting down big man Andre Screen in the paint.

Austin Peay, taking advantage of another onslaught of Bulldog turnovers, cashed in and took a 39-34 lead to the locker room. Butler would never see the lead again.

“The turnovers are alarming me right now,” Matt said. “We have to get that corrected.”

At the half, the dominance of the Governors in the paint was illustrated by their 20-to-6 scoring advantage in that regard. By the time the first media timeout of the second half came around, they were outscoring Butler 15-to-6 on second-chance points, and 32-to-10 in the paint.

The margin kept growing as by the end of the game the Dawgs would be outscored by a team that, on paper, was smaller than them 44-to-26.

Even with all the sloppy play, Butler was given chance after chance to get back in front as Austin Peay went through several long scoring droughts. But, the Dawgs kept throwing bricks at the side of a barn. Pierre Brooks was especially frustrated having missed many point-blank shots that inexplicably would not go in.

He’d still manage to scratch out 13 points.

Butler would tie the game 63-63 with one minute left to play, but, you guessed, one last turnover on a possession they needed to score on put the game out of reach, all while Thomas kept getting any shot he wanted late.

“Late in the second, we changed what we were doing and that got us going, but they just kept rotating fresh bodies in and we couldn’t keep up,” Matt said. “Number four (Thomas), we couldn’t stop him. He’s an unbelievable player.”

Butler took more three-point shots than two-point shots for the whole game. They were an abysmal 28% in that regard making just seven of the 25 threes they threw up.

The loss clearly shows there are bigger issues at play with this Butler Bulldogs squad, and Coach Matta certainly has his work cut out for him in the weekend ahead as Butler will welcome Western Michigan to Hinkle Fieldhouse on Monday, Nov. 11. They certainly better figure them out fast.

“We have to get better. We have to play better,” Matta said. “We’ve been knocked down, but we have to get back up.”

Butler Gifts Austin Peay Their First Win Over ‘Power 6’ Team In 13 Years  was originally published on ronewibc.staging.go.ione.nyc