Tag: Butler

Did choosing tennis over basketball set Hayward on a path to Boston?

A decision to play tennis instead of AAU basketball might have set Gordon Hayward on a path to play for Boston — by preventing other schools from stealing him from Butler and Brad Stevens.

Boston Celtics veteran forward Gordon Hayward might not be on the team had he not chosen to play tennis, it seems.

Talking on the TrueHoop “Bring It In” podcast recently, Celtics head coach Brad Stevens related an interesting tidbit about the recruiting process he had with Hayward as head coach of Butler — and how his intensely competitive nature kept him off the radar of other teams just long enough to get the Indiana native to sign at the mid-major college.

Hayward wasn’t heavily recruited at first, a “late bloomer”, according to Stevens, who first crossed paths with the future Boston swingman while the Butler product was still a junior in high school.

“[The Haywards were] the first family that sat in my office, as a recruit,” he began. “We didn’t offer him a scholarship at the time.”

But after a chance to see him play, Stevens had a change of heart.

“Right after the workout [we] called his high school coach and told him he had a scholarship offer to Butler. And you know, from that point on, it became a little bit of a fight with some other schools just because he, he blew up quickly.”

But Hayward quickly made up his mind, committing to Butler after just six weeks — and didn’t play any A.A.U. ball over the summer, which likely helped keep the All-Star forward from being sniped by a blue blood program.

“He played tennis that summer to try to try to win a state tennis championship,” observed Stevens. “So he was really under the radar.”

“We were fortunate that he was and and then I think one of the benefits of that is is that when he got to college, it was really the first time that he had focused solely on basketball. So there was a real passion for it, and a real passion to work at it,” he explained.

Hayward and Stevens would go all the way to the brink of an NCAA championship together, Hayward’s late heave against Duke bouncing out at the literal last second.

The bond the pair forged all those years ago was most certainly a factor in the 30-year-old forward’s decision to sign with the Celtics in the summer of 2017.

And it’s certainly possible that had the young prospect played A.A.U. ball that summer, minds could have been changed about his college of choice as well.

Tennis — and Hayward’s obsession with winning — may have helped set Boston’s current roster composition in motion in one of those ‘what-if’, butterfly effect moments.

We’ll just have to be happy things worked out as they did.

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Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament: No. 1 Seed – 2014-15 Irish

Now, we get to the heavy hitters in the Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament, beginning with the top seed.

Now, we get to the heavy hitters in the Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament, beginning with the top seed. The 2014-15 Irish represented the program’s second season in the ACC, but they made it clear to everyone that they intended to compete in perhaps the best conference in college basketball, not simply lay down for the likes of Duke, North Carolina and Syracuse. No one could deny it when this season was over.

En route to a 32-6 record, the program’s best since going 33-7 in 1908-09, the Irish jumped out to a 15-1 start and ended up winning 20 of their first 22 games, including eight of their first nine ACC games. That run ended with a four-point win over the No. 4 Blue Devils, at which point the Irish were ranked eighth, as high as they would get during the season. In spite of their 14-4 conference record, it only netted them a No. 3 seed in the ACC tournament. That didn’t matter, however, because the Irish squeezed out wins over Miami, Duke and North Carolina by an average of 8.3 points to win Mike Brey his first championship and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

The close but meaningful games continued in March Madness. Seeded third in their region, the Irish needed everything to get by 14th-seeded Northeastern in a four-point first-round win, and the second-round win over in-state rival Butler required overtime. They breathed a little easier in an 11-point win over Wichita State in the Sweet Sixteen, setting up an Elite Eight matchup with Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Devin Booker and top-ranked Kentucky. The game was a classic, and the Irish would have made their first Final Four in 37 years had Jerian Grant not air-balled a corner 3 at the buzzer, giving the Wildcats a two-point victory.

Jerian Grant was named to the Consensus All-American First Team alongside Stein, Jahlil Okafor, D’Angelo Russell and Frank Kaminsky. He led the Irish with 16.5 points and 6.7 assists a game. Zach Auguste, Pat Connaughton and Demetrius Jackson all had scoring averages in the neighborhood of 12, and Steve Vasturia averaged 10.1 points a game. All of this made the Irish the second-best shooting team in the nation (50.9 percent), the third-best scoring team (2,963 points) and the ninth-best passing team (576).

Boston’s Gordon Hayward was a goofy, intensely competitive teenager

Boston Celtic veteran forward Gordon Hayward’s intensely competitive nature goes back at least as far as high school.

Boston Celtic veteran forward Gordon Hayward might be calm, confident and collected when he plays basketball in the NBA.

But, when he was still shooting hoops for his high school team, let’s just say he was goofier — if his former teammates are to be believed. NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg made his way to Brownsburg, Indiana to stick his nose ino Hayward’s past, and came away with some interesting dirt.

Of course, almost all of us were goofier in high school — that’s just part of growing up — but not all of us become All-Stars and famous players for the Celtics. Forsberg’s sleuthing got him in touch with a trio of former teammates of Hayward from the Brownsburg High men’s basketball team.

“If the city of Boston only knew how goofy this kid was in high school,” began ex-teammate Gino Calderon, trailing off as J.D. Crosby and Blake Hall, also former teammates of Hayward, laughed.

Regaling Forsberg with tales of the now-star’s former passivity intermingling with an intense competitive nature that manifested in all kinds of outlets one wouldn’t normally expect, the trio painted a picture of a very normal-sounding teenager.

With a very unusual fire in his belly.

“Shy and competitive,” offered Hall of Hayward in that era of his life.

“He would be the shy kid walking down the hall and not really talking to anyone. But then you get him in a video game contest, he starts screaming, hollering, and punching people. So it was kind of a bipolar — from shy to very competitive and aggressive in one person.”

At parties Hayward’s parents would host for the basketball team, all attendants — including parents — would play in competitive games like ping-pong, pool or foosball.

And they’d split into teams with a more talented player and a less-talented player, an ‘A’ and a ‘B’, if you will.

“Gordon was always the ‘A’ player. And I just remember one time he was stuck with one of the moms who was not coordinated at all,” revealed Hall.

“And he was getting audibly frustrated and screaming. Like the whole room just stops and looks at him and he realized he was screaming at one of our moms. But it was just kinda funny because it was his goal to win every game of the tournament even though there’s 20 people involved.”

His former teammates pained a consistent picture of the competitor-in-the-making that the Indiana native would become.

The one thing he didn’t excel at? Rapping, at least according to his former teammates.

Not that he was terrible — he famously made a short track about a jacked former classmate that went viral right before Hayward’s legendary 2010 NCAA tournament run — but it’s what you’d expect of a bunch of kids goofing around.

“I feel like, if you looked at him, you couldn’t tell, but he was talented at everything,” said Crosby.

“I remember he’d beat us in ping pong, he’d beat us at pool, he played tennis, and then he can make funny rap songs. I don’t know if there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.”

“[Rapping is] probably what he’s least good at, in my opinion,” interjected Hall. “But he’s so good at everything else.”

Basketball, too, evidently.

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What Notre Dame is Getting in Newest Commitment, Wertz

As a sophomore last season at Santa Clara, Wertz averaged 11.9 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game.  In his freshman year Wertz earned All-Freshman Team conference honors in the West Coast Conference.

Notre Dame basketball has it’s latest commitment as transfer guard from Santa Clara Trey Wertz chose Mike Brey’s Fighting Irish basketball program on Saturday afternoon.

Wertz chose Notre Dame over finalists Arizona, Butler and North Carolina with Carolina being the only campus he had ever stepped foot on, making a visit his sophomore year of high school.

What is Notre Dame Getting in Trey Wertz?

Wertz was a two-time all-state selection in high school at Providence Day School in Charlotte, North Carolina.  At the time of his recruitment he was a as a three-star talent and chose Santa Clara over the likes of Georgetown, Stanford, Virginia Tech and others.

As a sophomore last season at Santa Clara, Wertz averaged 11.9 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game.  Wertz earned All-Freshman Team conference honors in the West Coast Conference two seasons ago.

Quick Scouting Report:

This from Jeff Goodman of Stadium, who ranks Wertz as the eighth best player in the transfer portal this off-season.

Trey Wertz, 6-5, 185, G, Soph., Santa Clara
2019-20 Stats: 11.9 ppg
Scout’s take: “Big, smooth guard who gets to his spots well. Great pace and when you let him do that, he’s as good as anybody. When you get up in him and speed him up, he’s a different player.”
Schools: North Carolina, Arizona, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Virginia, Butler

Notre Dame Makes Final Four for Wertz, Decision Saturday

Wertz, who averaged 11.9 points, 3.9 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game as a sophomore at Santa Clara last year has cut his list of potential schools down to four and Notre Dame is one of the remaining choices.

Notre Dame has only made one Final Four in men’s basketball history but it did make the final four of schools for transfer guard Trey Wertz.

Wertz, who averaged 11.9 points, 3.9 assists and 3.5 rebounds per game as a sophomore at Santa Clara last year has cut his list of potential schools down to four and Notre Dame is one of the remaining choices.

Arizona, Butler and North Carolina also remain on his list.  Carolina is the only of those four schools he has previously visited, doing so back in his sophomore year of high school.

Wertz is set to announce his decision at 3:00 p.m. ET Saturday.  We’ll have the news for you once it goes down either good or bad.

Missing March Madness: Gordon Hayward and Butler go home

Our Missing March Madness series comes to an end with a miss that nearly changed the course of NCAA history as Gordon Hayward’s Butler fell to Duke.

In the final installment of Missing March Madness, we revisit the near miss of Boston Celtic veteran forward Gordon Hayward and his Butler Bulldogs in the title game of the 2010 NCAA Tournament.

A tightly-contested game from start to finish, neither team had more than a six-point lead at any time in the contest.

But, the Cinderella-story story run of Butler and Hayward came to an end after the Bulldogs couldn’t quite regain the lead in the game’s final moments, despite coming as close as 60-69 with under a minute to go.

In the contest’s final possession, the future Celtic forward would launch a 50-foot shot that hit the backboard, then the rim…

And then fell to the ground, a miss.

There have been few games that have come closer to such a massive upset, a lowly mid-major nearly stealing a national title from the bluest of blue blood programs.

The loss would sting greatly despite the improbability of Butler, Hayward, and future Celtics and then-Butler head coach Brad Stevens having made it that far in the first place.

The Indiana native would score just 12 points on 2-of-11 shooting in the loss along with 8 rebounds, the cold-shooting night ultimately sinking the Bulldogs title aspirations.

“There’s certainly nothing to hang your head about,” said coach Stevens at the time (courtesy of the Associated Press). I told them in there, what they’ve done, what they did together, will last longer than one night, regardless of the outcome.”

He wasn’t wrong.

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Missing March Madness: Hayward and Butler sneak past Michigan State

Boston Celtic All-Star forward Gordon Hayward led his Butler Bulldogs past the Michigan State Spartans in the Final Four on this date ten years ago.

While it may be April, March Madness doesn’t stop just because the month does (coronavirus quarantines, however, are a different story).

And for Gordon Hayward and his Butler squad in 2010, the Madness kept rolling well into the next month as his Bulldogs took on the Michigan State Spartans in the Final Four.

Hayward would help seal the win with a last-second rebound that would prevent the Spartans from scoring to tie the game or take the lead with a 3-pointer.

Butler came away with a 52-50 victory due to the Indiana native’s heroics, Hayward scoring 19 points and 9 boards counting the game-clinching rebound.

“We’ve been talking about the next game all year, and it’s great to be able to say the next game’s for a national championship,” said the future Celtic forward at the time (via the Associated Press).

Much like current teammate Kemba Walker a year later, Hayward’s improbable run set him up to play for an NCAA championship, facing off against the Duke Blue Devils on April 5th, 2010.

“If I was not playing, I’d be a Butler fan,” Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo said. “I like they way they play, I like their story.”

Unless it’s your team they sunk, how could you not?

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Santa Clara Transfer Trey Wertz Has Notre Dame on List

While it improved from an injury-riddled 2018-19 season, it’s unlikely Notre Dame would have made the 2020 NCAA tournament as aN at-large.

While it improved from an injury-riddled 2018-19 season, it’s unlikely Notre Dame would have made the 2020 NCAA tournament as an at-large team had it taken place. The Irish will take help however they can, and if a Monday report from 247Sports is any indication, help might come in a couple of years.

Santa Clara guard Trey Wertz has listed Notre Dame as one of 11 schools on his short list of schools he would like to transfer to. The Irish made the cut from an initial round of over 40 schools. They’ll have to battle it out with ACC rivals Virginia, North Carolina and NC State for Wertz’s services. Rounding out the list of finalists are Ohio State, Butler, Oklahoma, Arizona, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Xavier.

Wertz averaged 11.9 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists a game this past season while shooting 40.0 percent from 3-point range. It was a slight dip from the year before, in which he averaged 12.2 points and 4.7 assists a game and made the WCC All-Freshman Team.

The COVID-19 pandemic will make it difficult for Wertz to make visits, so it’s likely Notre Dame will have to rely on reputation alone to win him over. The inability for recruits to make visits during this crisis has hampered the entire athletic program, though the same could be said for other schools, too. If there’s one thing Notre Dame has going for it in this case, it’s that the university is closer to Wertz’s hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, anything is worth a shot to gain an advantage in this race.

DePaul at Butler college basketball odds, picks and best bets

Analyzing DePaul at Butler sports betting odds and lines, with college basketball betting picks and tips.

The DePaul Blue Demons (14-14, 2-13 Big East) visit the Butler Bulldogs (19-9, 7-8) in a Saturday-evening (6:30 p.m. ET) Big East contest at Hinkle Fieldhouse. We analyze the DePaul-Butler odds and betting lines, with college basketball betting advice and tips around this matchup.


DePaul at Butler: Three things you need to know

1. DePaul is 1-9 over its last 10 games, and the Blue Demons have won just two Big East contests. DePaul’s last victory came against these Butler Bulldogs. As a four-point underdog hosting Butler on Jan. 18 – and having lost four straight going in – the Demons whipped the Bulldogs by 13 points. DePaul’s defense forced 17 turnovers in the game; on offense, the Demons went 10-for-17 from beyond the three-point arc and got to the free-throw line 32 times. On the Butler side, the game marked the middle of three straight defeats. The losses came amid troubles on both sides of the ball.

2. The Bulldogs play a slow pace, one of the slowest in the nation. And in an otherwise high-tempo Big East, the Butler style is a zag against the zig that DePaul sees on most nights. However, the Blue Demons have performed better than expected against the slow teams. Against teams in the bottom 40 percent in pace, DePaul is 7-1 against the spread. In those eight games, the over has gone 6-2, so its apparent the Demons are “winning” the pace if not the game.

3. DePaul has been torched from distance of late. Over their last four games, the Demons have witnessed foes going 47-for-95 (49.5 percent) on the extra-point 20-footers. For the season, DePaul has allowed a 32.5 percent figure, a mark which ranks 205th in the nation (about average). The Butler Bulldogs rank 253rd in the nation in attempts. Their 33.8 percent success rate ranks 160th.

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DePaul at Butler: Odds, betting lines and picks

Odds via BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated at 11:20 a.m. ET.

Prediction

Butler 72, DePaul 63

Moneyline (ML)

AVOID THE JUICE-FILLED BUTLER -400/DePAUL +310 PROPOSITION.

Against the Spread (ATS)

There are crisscrossing trends here, but the Bulldogs are coming off five days or rest and have done well in such spots this season (4-1 ATS). They have a likable line and are worthy of a small-confidence play. TAKE BUTLER -7.5 (-121).

Over/Under (O/U)

There’s a lean on the UNDER 135.5 (-115) here, but its not actionable. Stand pat.

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Butler unveils Blue IV, college basketball’s most adorable mascot

Butler unveiled the school’s new mascot, Lion King-style.

Butler University’s bulldog mascot Blue III is one of the most beloved in all of sports, but after serving the school for seven years, Blue III is set to retire at the end of the season.

On Friday night, Blue III’s successor, Blue IV, was unveiled at Hinkle Fieldhouse before a game against Marquette in a Lion King-style ceremony, and you really, really need to see the photos.

Blue IV is just a few months old, and was born on October 30th. The puppy will take over as the active mascot at the start of the next academic year, according to WishTV.

AP Photo/Darron Cummings
AP Photo/Darron Cummings

For The Win is now a Blue IV fan site.

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