By Paul Gotham
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Forgive Brad Stevens if he sounds a little ungrateful. The sixth-year head coach of the Butler University men’s basketball team knows full well the advantages gained when the Bulldogs joined the Atlantic 10.
That doesn’t change the attitude Stevens has when looking at his conference schedule. In a conference of 16 teams with an equal amount of league games, Butler’s road schedule has top-heavy appearance.
“Our schedule is a monster,” Stevens said during the Atlantic 10 media day at the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, New York. “If you really analyze the A-10 schedules, and you look at ours, it’s a monster. When you look at the top nine teams that were picked in the league, we go on the road to seven of them.”
Not to mention, Butler is one of those top nine teams. In other words, Butler goes on the road and plays seven of the top teams in the conference and only gets one (St. Louis) at home.
Is that Willie Nelson playing in the background?
Butler opens A-10 play at pre-season number one, St. Joseph’s. Three days later Stevens and his team gets a dose of Red Scare when they visit the UD Arena. They return home to play Richmond and non-conference game with Gonzaga before heading to Philadelphia for a date with La Salle. The denizens of the Hinkle Fieldhouse get Temple at home and close January at St. Louis, the number two team in the conference.
“Who’s got a tough road to hoe?” Stevens continued. “We certainly do, but, at the end of the day, that’s what we signed up for, and we’re excited.”
Butler closes conference play hosting the Billikens (its only home and home series) and then games at VCU (ranked third in the conference) and at UMass (fifth) before closing conference play against Xavier.
Stevens and his staff didn’t make things any easier on themselves scheduling a challenging non-conference slate. Of course, most of Butler’s non-A-10 schedule was in the books before the Bulldogs left the Horizon League.
The Bulldogs get a rare non-conference game against a conference opponent when they travel to the Cintas Center to take on the Musketeers for the ESPN Tip-Off marathon in early November. Butler gets Marquette in the opener of the Maui Invitational with North Carolina or Mississippi State to follow the next day. The Bulldogs close out the calendar year of 2012 with games at Northwestern and Vanderbilt before a tilt away from home against Indiana.
“When you look at college basketball, you’ll say Butler played the most challenging road schedule in the country,” Stevens added. “I’m looking forward to those challenges.
Will the difficult schedule convert to success in March?
“It helps if you handle it right,” Stevens explained. “It helps if you manage it right. If you have success it helps greatly. If you don’t, you just have to manage that. The key is maintaining an keel through the ups and downs.”
One year after losing five games in the Horizon League and advancing to the national championship for the second consecutive year, the Bulldogs found themselves on the outside looking when the NCAA named its 2012 field. Seven conference losses doomed their fate. The move to the A-10 was inevitable. Butler ended a 33-year affiliation with the Horizon and joined the A-10 in the summer of 2012.
“We put ourselves in a great position. Let’s ride the wave. If it doesn’t work out, we’re going to go down swinging. We’re going to try as hard as we can. It’s kind of always the way I’ve looked at things at Butler. It’s been a fun way to live. You’re not afraid of the next loss. You’re more invigorated by the next challenge.”
Butler returns 11 of 14 players from last year including three starters: Andrew Smith (10.9 ppg 5.2 rpg), Khlye Marshall (9.8 ppg 4.3 rpg) and Roosevelt Jones (7.8 ppg 6.0 rpg). Chase Stigall also returns. He led the Bulldogs with 50 3-pointers.
Rotnei Clarke, who sat out last season per NCAA transfer requirements, joins the lineup. The 6’0″ guard has one year of eligibility remaining after playing three years at Arkansas.
“He is a key piece of our team,” Stevens said of Clarke. “He will be asked to do a lot of things. The thing we need him to do is not leave anything at home. Bring it all every single day. He gets one year at Butler. I told him you’re going to get two years of opportunities and take and make the most of them.”
Clarke led the Razorbacks in scoring during the the 2010-11 season with 15.2 ppg and earned second team All-SEC. He became the 34th member of the Razorbacks 1,000 point club with 1,306 points. Clarke earned a reputation as a three-point specialist. His 274 field goals from behind the arc rank second in Arkansas history.
Stevens has more in mind for the native of Verdigris, Okla.
“He’ll play the point. He’ll play off the ball some too,” Stevens explained. “I have the utmost respect and confidence for his ability to run the point. I think he got branded as a shooter-only in probably an unfair way. We’re going to put the ball in his hands a lot. He’s as good off ball screens as he is off down screens and flair screens.”
After a pair of exhibitions, Butler hosts Elon before playing at Xavier on November 13th.
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