Story by Wyatt Ebersole
The Butler Men suffered a crushing loss on Wednesday night on the road at Barton, losing 81-52 to the Cougars. The loss drops the Grizzlies to 20-7 overall and 14-7 in conference play.
The teams came out firing in the first two minutes, trading the first four baskets, but the Grizzlies broke the trend after getting a stop and then Tahjae Hill made a tough lay-in to put the Grizzlies up 6-4 with 18:04 left in the half. This forced a Barton timeout that would spark a 10-0 Barton run that put them up 14-6 just two minutes later. Rob Brown broke the Cougars run with a step back corner three at the 14:20 mark to make it 14-9 Cougars, but Barton responded with a step-back three of their own to keep them up by eight at the under-15 media timeout. Three minutes passed and not much had changed, but the Grizzlies cut their deficit back down to four after a pair of free throws from Treylon Payne at the 10:04 mark. Barton responded with a 4-2 run to keep them up by six, 23-17 at the 7:20 mark of the first half. A corner three from Rob Brown with just under six minutes left in the half made the Butler deficit just one, but another quick run by Barton put them back up by six that forced a Butler timeout with four minutes left in the half. The Grizzlies were held scoreless in the final 3:18 of the half and the Cougars grew their lead to double digits just before halftime and took a 35-24 lead into the locker room.
Barton came out firing to start the second half going up by 15 in the first minute of the second half at 40-25 and holding the Grizzlies to just one point in the first five minutes. The Cougars jumped up by 21 points with 15 minutes left after a corner three put them up 46-25. The Grizzlies made some headway into the deficit, cutting it down to just 13 points after a big and-1 from Christian Richardson, but again Barton had a response. A 12-1 run to put themselves back up by 24 points with 8:52 left in the game. Barton continued to just dominate defensively, stifling the Grizzlies offense time and time again the rest of the game. Barton built their lead as big as 31 points at the 1:07 mark of the half 81-50 on route to an 81-52 win for the Cougars.
The Grizzlies get the rest of the week off and then host Cowley on Wednesday at 7:30.
Notes: Barton leads the series 11-8 since 2011 and this is the first win for Barton over Butler since January 4th, 2020… Butler is 27-22 in road games in the Kyle Fisher era… Butler is 2-6 at Barton since 2011 and 1-1 in the Kyle Fisher era (since 2019)… Butler is 6-3 this season playing against teams that appear in the national poll the week the teams meet…Chase Harris scored four points in the game, his first points against a conference opponent in his college career…
