Butler finds something to build on, faces upstart DePaul next

Butler, who was on a four-game losing streak, had been looking for a spark to turn its season around. The Bulldogs are hoping a 77-66 road win over then-No. 25 Seton Hall on Saturday can help steer them in the right direction.

"One game at a time and I think we got DePaul on Tuesday," Butler head coach Thad Matta said following the win. "We're going to celebrate this one on the way home, but we're going to get ready. We're going to take it one game at a time."

While Butler will shift its focus to hosting DePaul on Tuesday in Indianapolis, the Bulldogs will try to build on what they did against Seton Hall.

After falling behind 16-9 early in the first half, Butler flipped the switch, outscoring Seton Hall 25-8 to take a 34-24 lead into halftime. Offensively, Butler shot 50% in the first half and were led by Finley Bizjack, who scored 14 of his 25 points in the first 20 minutes.

"What I was hoping for was to fight and, my God did they fight (Saturday)," Matta said. "Very, very proud of this group. I thought our guys answered the bell, coming back and not playing as well as we wanted to on Wednesday night, talk about a quick turnaround -- we asked for toughness, we asked for intelligence and I thought we did a much better job of executing and it was a big win for us."

Like Butler, DePaul is also hoping to build off an impressive 80-75 home win over Marquette on Friday.

The Blue Demons struggled in the first half against the Golden Eagles, but rode a 44-31 advantage in the second half to secure the win.

CJ Gunn, the reigning Big East Player of the Week, had a career night with seven 3-pointers en route to 31 points to go along with seven rebounds and three assists. It was the most points scored by a DePaul player since Dec. 29, 2022.

"Just really proud of our guys' effort," DePaul head coach Chris Holtmann said. "I thought our start to the second half was as good as we've played offensively all year. ... This was as good of an offensive game as we've played all year."

Gunn leads DePaul with 14.5 points per game, while Bizjack averages 16.6 ppg and Michael Ajayi adds 16.3 points and 11.8 rebounds per game for Butler.

--Field Level Media