NCAA Basketball Tickets - Butler Beats Loyola of Chicago 62-47
By Brent Warnken
Matt Howard scored 20 points, Willie Veasley added 12 points and snatched eight rebounds and the Butler Bulldogs defeated the Loyola of Chicago Ramblers 62-47. Get NCAA Basketball tickets and see Howard lead his team to victory. It was their 13th straight win and Butler matched its second-longest winning streak in school history. After the game, Howard stated, "This team is looking for more. If we're going to keep progressing, it's got to be 40 minutes of basketball to get to where we want to be."
The Bulldogs (21-4, 14-0) can capture the conference title with a win at Youngstown State on Feb. 11. Butler coach Brad Stevens told the press his team hasn't won the Horizon League title just yet. The coach said, "You always like to win it outright, but to be there on the doorstep and have a chance to do that, I'm proud of our guys."
Walt Gibler and Geoff McCammon scored nine points apiece for Loyola of Chicago (13-11, 4-10), who have dropped six of their past seven games against the Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs started the game slowly and didn't register double figures until Chase Stigall swished a three-pointer with seven minutes left in the first half. His 3-pointer cut Loyola's lead 15-10. Stevens acknowledged that Stigall's 3 was huge for the Bulldogs. He said, "Biggest shot of the night was Chase hitting that 3 in the corner because it got us going. We were stuck on six and seven forever."
Even though Butler shot only 22 percent from the field in the first half, they trailed just 26-24 at the break. The Bulldogs started the game shooting 2 of 18 while the Ramblers quickly pulled away with a 15-6 lead nine minutes into the contest. Loyola coach Jim Whitesell admitted, "In the first half, we were really pleased with the defensive effort and we were really hoping we'd be up a little more."
In the second half, Veasley recorded five consecutive points and broke a 29-29 tie, which gave Butler its first lead since they scored the first two points of the game. The Bulldogs suddenly came alive and went on a 15-8 scoring burst over the next eight minutes to take a 49-37 lead. Butler's Shelvin Mack ended the scoring push with a shot from 3-point land.
Stevens said he didn't know if his team would get 20 points. He continued to say, "Sometimes your mind wants to do one thing and your body doesn't let you, but our guys fought through that. It wasn't pretty, but it was definitely a win that I'm proud of our guys."
The Bulldogs finished the game shooting 36 percent from the field. They shot 68 percent in Saturday's (Feb. 6) victory over Wright State. In that contest, Veasley had a career-high 19 points while Howard added 12 and Gordon Hayward finished with 11. Butler coughed up the ball 17 times and missed 13 field goals against the Raiders. Butler didn't duplicate those mistakes against Loyola, but they seemed lethargic from the start of the game.
About the author
This article was sponsored by StubHub. StubHub sells NCAA Basketball tickets, as well as many other kinds of sports tickets, concert tickets, special events tickets and theater tickets.Distributed by ContentCrooner.com from http://www.FreeArticlesAndContent.com
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