:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/51915619/622880160.0.jpeg)
The Butler Bulldogs cruised to their third victory of the 2016 season on Saturday afternoon, taking down the Bucknell Bison 86-60.
The Bulldogs never trailed from bell-to-bell in this contest, merely spending the opening 27 seconds deadlocked at 0-0 before Tyler Wideman got the scoring started. From there, a balanced effort would lead BU to victory as four players finished with double figures.
The aforementioned Wideman led the way with 14 points, tied with Avery Woodson who chipped in 14 as well. Kelan Martin added 13 points while freshman Kamar Baldwin, the hero from Wednesday night in their battle with Northwestern, scored 10.
The Bison were led by center Nana Foulland, who scored a game-high 16 points.
We’ll be back shortly with three things we learned from this game.
What we learned
Kamar Baldwin remains legit
After singlehandedly leading Butler over Northwestern on Wednesday night, Baldwin hit the court at Hinkle Fieldhouse again and did a dynamite job. Baldwin scored 10 points on 80 percent shooting from the field, chipping in three boards, two assists and a block and a steal in just 19 minutes of action. The Butler freshman is finding a variety of ways to contribute, and that’s gotta be promising for everybody involved.
The Bulldogs fared better from 3 today
Coming into the game, Butler was ranked 220th in the country in 3-point percentage, knocking down just 30.8 percent of their 3-point attempts through their first two games. Against Bucknell, they had a lot more success. The ‘Dawgs shot 53.3 percent on 15 attempts from the 3-point line, their best mark of the season after hovering around 30 percent in their first two meetings against Northern Colorado and Northwestern. The Bulldogs were one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the conference last season, and they took one step forward towards getting back to form on Saturday afternoon.
Butler’s nonconference home win streak continued
The last time that the Bulldogs lost a nonconference game at home, they were still part of the Horizon League, and Xavier was still a member of the A-10. In fact, the Musketeers were the last team to tag Butler with a nonconference loss at Hinkle Fieldhouse back on December 7, 2011. Since that day, Butler’s loss column has been clean as a whistle. Pretty impressive, no?