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Message: [QUOTE="YKCornelius, post: 4824305, member: 9864"] Here are some additional thoughts from the cheap seats: 1- Austin Parkinson is a GREAT WBB head coach. Easily one of the best young coaches in the game. Comes from a great basketball family (think Danny Hurley), and has had an immediate impact with Butler, inheriting arguably the worst program in D-I two years ago (went 1-27 the year prior to his arrival with seven players entering the portal) and bringing them to immediate respectability last year with an 11-19 record, including a 2-3 record in games decided by two points or less. This was the same path he took at IUPUI (his first HC gig) where he turned a 3-26 team into a program that won 20+ games and played in the post-season eight times in the eleven non-COVID seasons he was HC. (I invite everyone to listen to his pre-game interview with Bob Joyce tonight - a personable guy who loves the challenge of building up a program.) 2. To replace the seven players entering the portal, last year Parkinson brought in four players (two grad students) and convinced Sydney Jaynes to return to Butler. This year, four lesser players left the program, and three better players came in, including two from Big Ten programs (5-8 JR speedster Ari Wiggins from Michigan and 6-4 SO post Lily Stoddard from Purdue) and a grad-xfer who started for him at IUPUI (5-11 Rachel Kent). 3. Parkinson faces the same delicious challenge that Geno faces: bringing a rebuilt team together. Like UConn, Butler is still working out the kinks that come from integrating new players into a cohesive unit. 4. Five Butler players on this year's team (Jaynes, Mortag, Strande, Meulemans, and Wingler) played significant minutes during last year's blowout at Gampel, including three who started (Jaynes, Mortag and Strande). Mortag hasn't played at all this year, but the other four have played a lot. All four played significant minutes (along with xfers Kent and Wiggins) at Iowa State in front of 9,900+ fans, so I don't think they will be over-awed in front of a large XL Center crowd. 5. Butler has inexperienced size up front. That said, they have four players 6'2 or taller who [I][B]averaged[/B][/I] a combined 56+ minutes in their last four games, which means Parkinson is playing two bigs alongside each other for a good chunk of time. 6. Make no mistake this is a guard-centric team. They like to pass the ball around a lot. However, they have not yet faced a team with the defensive pressure that UConn can bring. Bottom line: I am looking forward to the growth of this team and this program. I think this Bulldog team can be competitive this year with most of the teams in the Big East, which has not been the case in recent years. If I lived in Indianapolis, I would purchase season tickets! [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach