The Big East has been an extremely impressive conference so far this season and on Tuesday night we will see a battle between two of the best it has to offer as the Butler Bulldogs take on the Providence Friars. Butler comes into the game at 13-4 (2-3) and ranked 18th in the nation while Providence comes in at 15-3 (3-2) and ranked 16th in the nation.
This is the second meeting of the season between these two teams the first of which Providence won on the road by a score of 81-73. Butler has lost three of their first five conference games but all three losses were against top 12 teams in the nation at the time. The Bulldogs only non-conference loss this season was against Miami which isn't a bad loss at all and they do have impressive wins very Cincinnati and Purdue.
Butler is led by senior guard Kellen Dunham who is first on the team with his 15.8 points per game despite regressing a little bit compared to last year. Dunham's numbers are down across the board this season but he is still making 36 percent of his threes and is a major threat on offense. Dunham is coming off a 24 point performance in Butler's win over St. Johns and has shot the ball much better over his last four games.
Another player to watch for the Bulldogs is sophomore forward Kelan Martin. Martin is third on the team with his 14 points per game and his shooting percentages are outstanding this season (52 percent from the field and 42 percent from three). Like Dunham, Martin had a big time game against St. Johns as he scored 22 points and added 10 rebounds in his third double-double of the season.
Providence comes into this game having struggled early on in Big East play as well. The Friars have lost two of their last three but the difference is their losses didn't come to the elite teams like Butler's did. Regardless of that, Providence's resume looks very solid as their only non-conference loss was to Michigan State and they have big wins over Arizona and Butler.
Providence is led by one of the best players in the nation in junior guard Kris Dunn as he does everything for this team. Dunn is averaging 17.8 points, 6.3 rebounds and a team leading 6.7 assists per game. Dunn has also increased his three point shooting percentage from 35 percent last year to 37 percent this year. The 6-foot-4 point guard has scored at least 20 points in four out of the five Big East games so far with Saturday's loss against Seton Hall being the outlier. Dunn will look to bounce back along with his team in this one.
While Dunn does everything for Providence he is not the team's leading scorer, that would be sophomore forward Ben Bentil. Bentil is tops on the team with his 19.2 points per game and his 8 rebounds per game and his improvement from last year to this year has been enormous. Bentil has shot just 8-27 in his last two games but has still been productive due to his rebounding and free throw shooting (82 percent on the season).
Providence has the home court advantage in this one and will look to sweep the season series after winning at Butler to open up Big East play. The teams have split the last two meetings in Providence with the Friars winning a close one last year at home.
The game is scheduled to tip off at 6:30 P.M. Eastern time on Fox Sports 1 and to watch the live broadcast go here. For the Butler radio broadcast go here and for the Providence radio broadcast go here.
