March 2, 2012

Box Score

VALPARAISO, Ind. - Khyle Marshall had a double-double of 17 points and 10 rebounds while Roosevelt Jones added more 17 points as Butler captured a 71-49 win over the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Friday night in the second round of the Horizon League Men's Basketball Tournament at the Athletics Recreation Center.

The Bulldogs (20-13) dominated the game on the interior, claiming a 52-16 edge on points in the paint and a 21-3 in second-chance points.

Butler advances to Saturday's second semifinal game against top-seeded Valparaiso, while UWM (20-13) will wait and see if it earns a postseason berth.

UWM never really got itself on track. It trailed by eight in the early going but did rally to within a point late in the first half. Butler then responded by scoring 13 of the next 14 points to take control of the game by early in the second half.

The rebounding-edge set the tone for the Bulldogs, as three of their first four baskets came on offensive rebounds.

"Watching Butler down the stretch it was the one big concern of mine, keeping them off the glass," UWM head coach Rob Jeter said. "You try to see if they were going to be allowed to get to some of those balls that were in the air. I knew we would have inside position, but it was a matter of if we could get to them first or to get to a position to make the officials make some decisions, and we couldn't do that."

Milwaukee shot just 31.9 percent from the field overall and never led in the contest in seeing its five-game winning streak snapped. James Haarsma led the Panthers with nine points as UWM struggled all night offensively against a stellar Butler defense.

"It disrupted me a lot more than I thought it was going to," senior point guard Kaylon Williams said. "They rotated and took away a lot of the passes I was looking for. It caused me to make some bad decisions and it got us down late in the shot clock and having to force shots."

The Panthers battled their way through the first 20 minutes. Butler scored the first six points of the game and it took Milwaukee over five minutes to record its first basket. UWM eventually found itself down 14-6 on a basket by Jones with 9:40 remaining. The Panthers struck back, closing to within 14-12 on a Kyle Kelm free throw and crawled within 18-17 on a three by Tony Meier with 1:40 left.

From there, though, Butler exploded. The Bulldogs scored the final basket of the first half to carry a 22-18 lead into the locker room and then scored the first nine points of the second half to build a 31-18 advantage. Milwaukee did crawl back to within 33-26 on a pair of free throws by Ryan Haggerty with 15:31 remaining, but UWM could never get closer.

"I think we got discouraged after the first couple of plays in the second half," Jeter said. "We got some inside looks, it didn't go positively for us, and it compounded itself."

The Butler lead hit 42-26 on a Chase Stigall three with 12:55 left and a basket from Andrew Smith made it 54-37 with 8:20 remaining. Butler eventually led by as many as 24 points down the stretch as both teams emptied their benches.