New Year's Eve - Villanova at Butler 7:30pm ET FS1

[HoosierPal]

Back to the game, I wasn't able to watch it due to work but I've heard grumblings about poor officiating. Any truth to this?

Not really. Inconsistent calls on both side of the ball. But it didn't effect the outcome of the game. Dunham and Marshall both sat most of the first half. One foul on each was questionable, but so were many others for both teams. No complaints.

[butlerguy03]

Officiating was OK. The lineups that Butler was forced to play with hurt Butler real bad though.

Seen more than once vs Villanova:

Barlow, Aldridge, Fromm, Chrabascz, Dunham (that 3 guards, a shooting SF, and a freshman post player)

and

Brown, Castro, Woods, Fromm, Chrabascz (2 freshman PG, 2 shooting forwards, and a freshman post player)

[GumbyDamnit!]

Officiating was OK. The lineups that Butler was forced to play with hurt Butler real bad though.

Seen more than once vs Villanova:

Barlow, Aldridge, Fromm, Chrabascz, Dunham (that 3 guards, a shooting SF, and a freshman post player)

and

Brown, Castro, Woods, Fromm, Chrabascz (2 freshman PG, 2 shooting forwards, and a freshman post player)

The refs or the foul situation didn't affect the outcome.

To counter your comments above let me say this... 1). If Butler is not a deep team then who's fault is that? Especially this year with how fouls are being called, people are going to get into foul trouble earlier in some games. Our big man, Ochefu had 2 fouls in the first 4 minutes. So that door swings both ways. We went to the bench (10 guys played) and didn't skip a beat. 2). I assume that E. Brown came in and played that many minutes b/c Dunham was in foul trouble. Brown was unconscious and almost single-handedly kept you in the game (I remember him scoring like 10-12 straight points in the first half when Dunham was out). I also think that big Frosh Chrabascz came in and gave very valuable contributions. Sometimes things like that happen and it ends up being a blessing in disguise. Not saying that Brown is a better player than Dunham--he is not--but there are no guarantees that the team would have fared better with Dunham in the game and Brown (& Chrabascz) on the bench.

[indienapolis]

I think the calls cut both ways, and not only that, but Butler had plenty of opportunities to win that game. It's been a year of tough losses just like this. Butler can hold their heads high as they are competing at a high level, but their three losses were all potential winners that maybe a with mixture of luck and better inbounding plays could've gone the other way. They'll be a tough contender in the Big East this year, probably a bubble team, and setting the stage for a top caliber 2015 squad.