Rick Pitino says that Butler is going to win tonight.
His rationale is pretty compelling. UCONN, after playing five straight days in the Big East Tournament, has played in five more games in the last sixteen days. Ten games in twenty one days. That’s a lot of basketball.
During that stretch, Kemba Walker has been terrific but he has played in 384 out of a possible 405 minutes. That’s nearly 95% of the minutes and he has played them while carrying the scoring load for his team.
According to Pitino that makes the Huskies the more fatigued team going into tonight’s matchup. Which he thinks, gives Butler the edge.
The major problem I see with Pitino’s analysis is that UCONN has won all of those games. They have rattled off ten wins in a row against quality competition. So they have shown the ability to shake off fatigue and still play at a high level. These are 18-22 year old kids who can summon enough adrenaline to carry them through forty more minutes of basketball to achieve something no one thought was possible when the season began. Doesn’t the hottest team in America have the momentum? Plus they are playing Butler, not exactly a juggernaut like Morehead State, right Rick?
Butler on the other hand battled Old Dominion to the wire. Then they won against top seeded Pittsburgh in the most bizarre game of the tournament, and that too went down to the last tenth of a second. Next up was a physical Wisconsin team that pushed the Bulldogs to the limit. In the Elite they went to war with a bigger, stronger Florida team and eeked out a victory in the waning minutes. So even if they had an easier time in the final four than the Huskies, couldn’t one argue that they, not UCONN would be the more tired team?
I think that Butler coach Brad Stevens is one of the best young coaches in college basketball. The fact that he wants to stay and continue building a program at Butler is admirable in today’s, take the money and run coaching culture. He has built a Bulldog team that plays hard nosed basketball and doesn’t let up for forty minutes. They lost their best player in Gordon Heyward and still are here making their second straight trip to the finals.
If Butler and UCONN played a best of seven series, I would pick Butler to win in seven games.
But in one game, with both teams playing on tired legs, I am going to go with the team who has the best player on the court. A player who makes everyone on his team better and who can get his shot at will.
I am going with Kemba Walker and UCONN 73 – 68.
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