Some in the Indianapolis area are calling the Butler-Villanova game on Saturday the biggest college game ever at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse… and it’s easy to see why.
This is a landmark moment in the life of Hinkle Fieldhouse, one of college basketball’s most treasured venues. The Butler team that gained prominence in the cozy little Horizon League and then moved into the more prominent Atlantic 10 now has a chance to put its big-boy pants on in the Big East.
While the Bulldogs have hosted Gonzaga, Louisville, and Xavier as a top-10 in recent years, there is more at stake in this game. Though the Big East title is not going to be decided Saturday, Butler would forge a tie with the Wildcats with a win and even up the head-to-head on the season.
Simply put, it is the Big East. A conference with a rich history at the center of the story of college basketball over the past 36 years. Butler has a chance to break into that history by knocking off a traditional power. The Bulldogs have won conference tournament titles at Hinkle, but Saturday is a different animal altogether.
The ‘Cats also have a dog in this fight. A win gives the visitors from Villanova a two-game lead on Butler for the conference crown. A survival of this heavyweight fight in Hinkle gets Jay Wright’s team closer to locking up a number two seed in the NCAA tournament. A quality road win on Saturday would carry that kind of weight on Selection Sunday.
While Butler has not beaten Villanova since joining the Big East, the Bulldogs have been ultra-competitive. This includes last year’s loss in an overtime thriller and this year’s conference opener, when the Wildcats claimed a 12-point victory that was much closer than the final score if viewed through the lens of effort and intensity. In this more recent game — played on Dec. 31 — Butler grabbed 14 more offensive rebounds in the contest (17-3). The Bulldogs fell short because their best player, Roosevelt Jones, suffered through an aberrationally bad night, hitting just 4 of 15 field goal attempts. A typically strong performance from Jones would have put Butler on even terms with Villanova, and an even-steven game is what one should expect on Saturday in Indianapolis.
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The teams could not be much closer on an overall level. Coming into the week, ‘Nova and Butler were first and second respectively in adjusted defensive efficiency in the Big East, according to KenPom.com. They sat at 11th and 16th nationally in those categories. Villanova also cracks the top schools in offensive efficiency as well, at number 14. Butler sits at 55th, which is not too shabby in its own right (out of 351 teams, that’s still very good).
The teams also use similarly clean styles of play. They do not overwhelm anyone with size in the middle, preferring to win with larger guards and wing players. Villanova’s quartet of guards — Ryan Arcidiacono, Darrun Hilliard, Josh Hart, and Dylan Ennis — mans the perimeter, knocks down shots, and locks up the other team’s offensive attack. Butler also has an undersized and not entirely deep frontcourt. While the Bulldogs rely on Kellen Dunham a bit more exclusively than the balanced Wildcats do on their guards, Roosevelt Jones and Alex Barlow supply a strong supporting cast. You might remember Jones from ESPN Gameday’s visit two years ago when he went coast-to-coast in the final seconds to knock off Gonzaga at Hinkle.
While these teams’ styles of play and subsequent results have been fairly similar, the two teams have taken completely different paths to get to this significant occasion on Saturday. Villanova was a clear favorite to win the Big East at the beginning of the season. The Wildcats have won as a heavyweight and as a team expected to thrive since the season began. As for Butler, a tough 2014 season combined with the coaching turmoil surrounding Brandon Miller — who had to step away for health reasons one month before this season began — led many to vote Butler near the bottom of the Big East in preseason polls.
Chris Holtmann’s remarkable pinch-hit performance and his subsequent contract extension have proven again why preseason rankings are quite overrated… and why the game is decided on the floor, not in polls. The Bulldogs have an opportunity to get back into serious national contention just a couple of years after losing Brad Stevens to the NBA. That they’re able to do so in the Big East Conference speaks to the durability of this program, which some thought would not be able to remain a factor in college basketball once Stevens — viewed as one of the next great coaches in the sport — scratched his NBA itch and moved to Boston to coach the Celtics.
While it’s hard to say that this is the biggest college game in the 87-year history of Hinkle Fieldhouse, it is easily the biggest of the weekend when you consider what is at stake. It is also a game that Fox Sports 1, which is struggling with viewers, wishes it had.
That brings up a final but very noteworthy point about this contest: Despite the magnitude of the event, the time slot and network assignment reflect the extent to which the Big East is — for the casual college basketball fan — a secondary attraction.
This is a 6:05 p.m. game on Saturday. CBS Sports Network, not big CBS or FS1, has the broadcast. Meanwhile, what game does ESPN have in the 6 Eastern time window on Saturday? Oh — Duke at Syracuse, before more than 35,000 fans at the Carrier Dome. Syracuse, the team that left the Big East and made it a much less desirable property on television, will play a high-profile ACC contest despite its lack of postseason eligibility.
In a fair world, Villanova-Butler would receive ESPN-level visibility, while Duke against ineligible-for-anything Syracuse would be the CBS Sports Network offering. Yet, as anyone left in the smaller Big East could tell you, life isn’t very fair.
It will be up to Villanova and Butler to create a great game, one which can overcome Duke-Syracuse this Saturday — on people’s remote controls, and then in people’s hearts. If the Cats and Dogs of the Big East put on a great show, perhaps this could be remembered as the moment when the little-boy Big East of the post-Syracuse, post-Connecticut era grows up and claims a rightfully elevated place in the world of college basketball.
Requiem For The Big East? Villanova and Butler have a chance to give birth to a new day for the conference when the ball is tipped inside one of college basketball’s most fabled arenas.
