Story by Wyatt Ebersole
The Butler Men got a scare, but they withstood the Colby Trojan charge on Tuesday night to enact some revenge on the Trojans. The Grizzlies were shocked by Colby back on November 16th in the Grizzlies conference home opener where Colby won 74-70. The win for the Grizzlies on Tuesday moved them to 16-4 overall and 10-4 in conference play and was their sixth consecutive victory. For the Trojans, they drop to 4-15 overall and 1-12 on the year, and they have now lost 12 straight games.
The game started in classic Grizzly fashion as a slower, back-and-forth battle with neither side leading by more than three points over the first nine minutes. The Grizzlies took the first 4+ point lead of the game when Rob Brown splashed in a three-pointer to give Butler an 18-14 lead. The Grizzlies next basket came a minute later, also a three-pointer from Brown that edged the Grizzly lead up to five. The Grizzlies then got some offense clicking as they would go on a quick 10-3 run capped by an and-1 from Tahjae Hill and then a follow up three-pointer from Hill. The Grizzlies would lead by 8 or 10 the rest of the half and entered the locker room up 40-32 on the Trojans.
Both sides came out cold with neither side scoring for two and half minutes to start the second half, but the drought was broken by another Rob Brown three with put the Grizzlies up by 11. Colby began to make some headway into the lead, and they trailed by only four points with the ball with 13:32 to play, but the Trojans couldn't capitalize and saw the Grizzlies go on an 8-0 run to put themselves back up by 12. Isaac Ondekane found a bucket down low with 9:39 left in the half that gave the Grizzlies their biggest lead of 14, but that margin would be short lived after Colby would make three free throws on their next possession. The Grizzlies continued to keep Colby a good distance away, leading by double-digits for most of the next seven minutes, however, the Trojans weren't down and out. The Grizzlies struggled as a team to make free throws down the stretch and this allowed Colby to move within shouting distance of Butler late. Colby got the lead down to four at 71-67 with 12 seconds left, but that was as close as they would get, and the Grizzlies managed to survive the Trojan charge and pick up the revenge victory.
Due to this game being a reschedule from last week, the Grizzlies will turn around and play tomorrow at 8:30PM CT against NW Tech.
NOTES: Butler is 4-3 against Colby in the Kyle Fisher Era and are 12-8 against Colby since 2011…First win at Colby since December 30th, 2015…Grizzlies are 4-0 in games this year where Rob Brown scores 20+ points…The Grizzlies 52.2% free throw shooting percentage in the game was their second worst mark of the season (vs KCK, 50%)…After going nine straight games without a three-point shooting percentage better than 30%, the Grizzlies have shot 33.3% or better from three in five straight games and have made at least six threes in each game in that stretch…