Simas Lukosius, the Freshman from Lithuania hit a clutch three pointer with five seconds to go in the game to lift Butler past DePaul 72-71 on Tuesday night at Wintrust Arena in downtown Chicago.
On a team full of Seniors and upperclassmen, it was the underclassmen who led the charge for the Bulldogs. Of Butler's 73 points scored, 51 of them came from underclassmen. Butler was led in scoring by Lukosius who had a game high and career high of 19 points. Also scoring in double figures for the Bulldogs were Sophomore Chuck Harris who scored 18 points, Freshman Jayden Taylor with 12 and Senior Aaron Thompson who added 11. In the closing nine minutes of the game, Lukosius scored 15 points including outscoring the Blue Demons 10-8 in the final three minutes by himself.
Butler started the game on a very sloppy note in the first half, committing seven turnovers in their first 17 possessions. The second half they were much sharper, only having three turnovers for the rest of the game.
In a season where the Bulldogs have ranked near the bottom of the Big East in free throw percentage, they had one of their best games from the charity stripe, going 18 for 21 from the line.
DePaul led 59-50 with seven minutes left in the game. Butler had a win percentage according to the analytics of just 5.1 percent at that stage in the basketball game.
The Blue Demons were led in scoring by David Jones who had 17 points. Javon Freeman who was leading the Big East in scoring before missing the last 7 games with a groin injury, returned to the lineup for DePaul and scored 13.
It's no secret to anybody who follows Butler basketball knows this team has been ravaged with injuries. That was the case once again on Tuesday night. Butler was without two starters. Seniors Bo Hodges and Bryce Nze. Hodges was out with a muscle strain and Nze was unavailable due to a knee injury. Both suffered their injuries late in the win over Creighton last Saturday. These two are key pieces to Butler's lineup. Hodges missed the first 14 games of the season with a tibial plateau fracture and Nze has missed seven games this season with knee soreness.
Butler was employing some different lineups in this game to combat with the injuries to Hodges and Nze. Several players who have seen very limited time this season got their time and they provided some spirited minutes. Freshman DJ Hughes, Junior John Michael Malloy, Sophomore Myles Wilmoth and Senior Ty Groce all came off the bench and provided double figure minutes for the Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs were able to withstand several runs by DePaul in the second half and held the Blue Demons without a three point field goal in the final eight minutes of the game.
Butler has dominated DePaul since joining the Big East. The Bulldogs are now 16-1 against the Blue Demons in their last 17 games.
No rest for the Bulldogs after this one. They have to travel to St. John's on Friday and then come home to face Big East conference leader Providence on Sunday. Three games in six days isn't easy for any team. Butler will need to find their resilience to combat these next two tough games.
Butler won their second game in a row to climb their record back to .500 at 13-13 on the season and 6-9 in conference play. The Blue Demons lost their second game in a row and also saw their record fall back to .500 on the season at 12-12. Butler has swept the season series against DePaul for the second year in a row.
Butler has had so many close Big East games in the last few weeks of the season it was no surprise this one against DePaul would be any different. Butler's last six games in the Big East have been decided by a total of 18 points. Butler found a way this time to reverse their Big East road woes and escape Chicago with a two point victory. Butler was without two starters, only shot 26 percent from three, down by nine with seven minutes to go, had a miracle three banked in by a Freshman to win the game, sounds like Butler basketball. Gritty, not pretty.
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