Butler basketball: Bulldogs earn 70-59 win over Troy

Jair Bolden scored 21 points and helped lead Butler to a 70-59 win over Troy.

In a rare back-to-back situation, the Bulldogs faced an early deficit to the Trojans. Troy built a 17-7 lead at the 7:50 mark of the first half. The Dawgs however were able to swim move past them and get into the win column by the game’s end.

Eight players from the Dawgs saw the floor in this matchup. Chuck Harris led with 23 points, but Bolden starred with his 21, thanks in large to his performance from deep. Bolden shot 4-for-5 from the 3-point arc, proving to be nearly impeccable from long range. Harris also hit four 3-pointers on a night where BU shot 12-for-25 from 3. The 48 percent mark

That was their best showing from 3 since a 50 percent day against Seton Hall on January 2 of this year.

Troy did give Butler some fits inside. The Trojans finished the game shooting 54.1 percent on 2-pointers. They were really unable to contain both Christyon Eugene and Efe Oidigie. Eugene and Odigie combined to shoot 8-for-13, with Eugene making all four of his 2-point tries. The Dawgs will certainly face tougher competition than Troy this year, so they’ll have to sharpen up their interior defense as the season progresses.

Then again, since this was a back-to-back, it’s fair to wonder how much we can really pull away from this game. This isn’t the NBA. College teams, outside of their early tournaments, don’t do this back-to-back thing all the time. So we’ll see how things shake out later on.

Butler has a huge test ahead of them later this week. The Big East and Big Ten will converge for their annual Gavitt Tip-Off games. So the Dawgs will be welcoming the Michigan State Spartans to Indianapolis on Wednesday night. That one should be a doozy, and is a huge early test for this BU team.