Merrimack @ Butler preview
Hinkle Fieldhouse
The Butler Bulldogs complete their season-opening five-game homestand against the Merrimack Warriors on Friday night.
The Bulldogs (3-1) have won two in a row after their losing to Austin Peay on Nov. 8.
Butler is coming off an 81-70 victory over SMU on Friday, when six Bulldog players scored in double figures, including a 10-point, nine-rebound performance from Andre Screen off the bench. Butler's bench players combined to score 24 points in the win, twice as many as they had scored in their loss to the Governors.
"We're telling guys when they go in, 'Just go and do your job,'" Bulldogs coach Thad Matta said. "That's what those guys have to do when they come into the basketball game, and we've had a little bit of pouting going on and we've nipped that in the bud."
Jahmyl Telfort is averaging a career-high 16.3 points, which leads the team. He had 19 points, six rebounds and five assists in the win over the Mustangs. Butler has three other players averaging double-digit points: Patrick McCaffery (15.3), Pierre Brooks II (15.0) and Finley Bizjack (10.7).
Merrimack (1-3) enters the game on a three-game losing streak. The Warriors have lost to VCU, Princeton and No. 24 Rutgers -- each by double digits. In their latest loss, the Warriors kept it close but eventually ran out of steam against the Scarlet Knights, who won 74-63 on Wednesday. Adam Clark scored 22 points in the loss as Merrimack was held to 40.6 percent shooting from the floor and hit just 4 of 24 shots from beyond the arc.
"I don't think the moment was too big. I didn't see any wide eyes out there," Merrimack coach Joe Gallo said. "You know, at the end of the day, I told them as good as those guys are, they're 18-, 19-year-old kids. We have some 24-, 25-year-olds and that's college basketball."
This is Merrimack's sixth season as a Division I basketball program. Last season, the Warriors narrowly fell to the Georgetown Hoyas 69-67 but finished the campaign at 21-12.
--Field Level Media