FoulOut138

Shelvin Mack, who is a freshman at Butler, is from Lexington. The media in Lexington and alumni have killed Gillespie for letting him escape.

Getting rid of a coach two years in is insane, unless there are major violations or the program completely falls apart (and no, playing in the NIT does not count as completely falling apart. But SEC schools and patient, rational thought on coaching decisions rarely go together.

Butler fans always have to keep an eye on job openings at major schools because Butler is the new cradle of basketball coaches. Kentucky would be real hard for Brad Stevens to turn down (actually there's no way he could turn it down). Granted, I'm sure Kentucky will go after Calipari, Ford, Capel, Sean Miller of Xavier, et al. before turning to Stevens.

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I'm not going to read thru this entire string, so this has probably already been pointed out, but the school's total enrollment is only 4,200 ... so I doubt whether there are "lots" of lurkers.

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Yeah, I don't know what LSU's enrollment is off the top of my head, but I guess you have as many students currently enrolled at LSU as Butler has living alumni (38,000 or so last time I heard the number).

Speaking of alumni, I'm surprised you haven't drug out Butler's most infamous alum for discussion.

Unless you like Chris Johnson chasing guys around the perimeter, you are best to put him on Howard and give him double-team help. Butler primarily runs a 1 inside, 4 outside set with lots of movement and screening.

From the Butler perspective, here is how I think Butler will defend (and it will be man-to-man, Butler plays roughly 20 possessions of zone the entire year).

Mitchell - Willie Veasley, he's only 6'3", but a very good post defender who held his own against Horford two years ago.

Thornton - Ronald Nored, Nored was the primary defender on Stephen Curry when Butler played Davidson, and forced Curry into a horrible shooting day and tons of turnovers.

Spencer - Shelvin Mack

Temple - Gordon Hayward

Johnson - Matt Howard