Leo and IPFW graduate Cameron Newbauer on Monday was named women's basketball coach at Belmont University, the Nashville, Tenn., university has announced.INDIANAPOLIS – No. 9 Butler needed a full half of basketball against Rhode Island to shake off its worst performance of the year at Saint Louis and find its top-10 form.
The Bulldogs overcame a poor first half to beat the Rams 75-68 on Saturday after playing their worst game of the season at Saint Louis last week.
Rotnei Clarke led Butler with 23 points. Roosevelt Jones added 18 points – 13 in the second half.
Clarke did the bulk of his scoring in the first 11 of minutes of the second half, pacing Butler (18-4, 5-2 Atlantic 10) through a 15-3 run that proved too big of a deficit for the Rams to overcome. Clarke scored 12 points in the swing.
Mostly, Clarke looked like his usual self, after committing a season-high six turnovers in a 75-58 loss against Saint Louis. Since coming back from a neck injury suffered on Jan. 12 at Dayton, Clarke had 10 turnovers in the two games.
“Last couple of games I just made careless mistakes with the ball, getting it to guys in the wrong spots,” Clarke said. “I’ve got to just be smarter.”
Nikola Maleseciv scored 18 points for Rhode Island (6-14, 1-6) in its fourth straight loss. The Rams led 32-30 at halftime.
The Butler lead swelled as far as 67-54 with about 4 1/2 half minutes to play, but the Rams used 11 points on free throws to make things interesting down the stretch.
“They’re a very hard out as you can see,” Butler coach Brad Stevens said.
Butler played the opposite game – sputtering through the first half. Khyle Marshall kept his team in the game with a series of high-flying dunks and hustle plays that produced 10 of the Bulldogs’ first 12 points.
“The difference between the second half beginning and the first half ending was we hit shots in the paints that we weren’t hitting before,” Stevens said.
Butler’s season-high 23 turnovers were much to blame for the blowout loss to the Billikens.
“We had different kinds of turnovers today,” Stevens said. “Turnovers where we were being aggressive.”
Butler played without forward Erik Fromm, a junior, whose father died of cancer earlier in the day.
“It’s hard, these guys are really tight,” Stevens said. “They know each other’s parents and they appreciate all the support they get from each other. It’s a really hard thing.”
