RTC Live: Butler @ Northwestern
Welcome back to RTC Live as we continue our coast-to-coast coverage of key games of national interest. Tonight we’re coming to you from the campus of Northwestern University, along the shore of Lake Michigan, as the Wildcats take on #10 Butler in an interesting game between the Big Ten and the Horizon League. As I’m sure you’re well aware, Northwestern has been hit with a string of bad news lately, losing star forward Kevin Coble to a foot injury for the season and reserve Jeff Ryan to an ACL tear. Butler returns at full strength with stars Gordon Hayward, Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard, but as we saw on Saturday afternoon, they struggled for a good portion of the game before finally putting away Davidson in a battle of mid-majors. Both teams will need to have this win on their resumes for March – Butler to have a quality road win over a Big Ten foe and Northwestern to have a win over a ranked team. Our correspondent John Templon will be onsite tonight at Welsh-Ryan Arena, and we invite you to join him tonight with your questions and comments.
[...] Story of the Day. Butler Passes Its First Non-Conference Test. #10 Butler 67, Northwestern 54. It was a balanced effort last night for the Bulldogs who shook off a sluggish opener against Davidson to down the shorthanded Wildcats. Northwestern could have used leading scorer and rebounder Kevin Coble along with senior forward Jeff Ryan (both out with season-ending injuries) against a deeper Butler squad that saw five players notch nine points or better. The effort was led by sophomore point guard Shelvin Mack’s 15 points and eight assists while Gordon Hayward chipped in with 14 of his own. Butler was able to win despite shooting a lackluster 8-16 from the charity stripe, a statistic I’m sure coach Brad Stevens won’t ignore. Butler now has a road date with Evansville before departing for Anaheim next week. For mor e details from this one, our RTC Live post is on it. [...]