Men’s Basketball Scoreboard:
CBI: Butler 63, Penn 53
PHILADELPHIA – It took Butler 75 years to visit the venerable Palestra, but the Bulldogs made their first trip worth it, knocking off Penn, 63-53, in the quarterfinals of the College Basketball Invitational presented by Zebra Pen.
Butler (22-14) advances to the semifinals, where the Bulldogs will host Pittsburgh on Wednesday night in a rematch of the teams’ memorable NCAA Tournament second round game in 2010. Tip will be at 8 p.m. ET on HDNet.
Inside the steamy Palestra, Butler and Penn (20-13) slogged through the first half trading missed shots and turnovers before the Bulldogs took control of the game midway through the second half.
Rob Belcore would give the Quakers a brief 31-29 lead before the Bulldogs reeled off nine straight points to take control of the game. Kameron Woods nailed a baseline jumper to knot the game before Erik Fromm faked and drove the lane for a hook to provide the final lead change of the night.
Khyle Marshall would then follow with a jumper and split a pair of free throws on the Bulldogs’ next possession, stretching the advantage to 36-31. Roosevelt Jones would follow with a tip in off a Marshall miss to cap the 9-0 burst and give Butler a seven-point edge with 8:55 to play.
Penn countered with five consecutive points to draw within 42-40, but after the teams traded empty possessions, Chrishawn Hopkins converted a floater in the lane to restore Butler’s two-possession advantage. The sophomore would hit a more acrobatic shot, flipping the ball up to the rim while falling, with 2:16 to play, giving Butler a 52-44 edge.
After a missed three – one of 16 misses from behind the arc by Penn – on the other end, Ronald Nored would seal the game, drawing contact and banking in a shot from the right side of the lane. The senior converted the three-point play with 1:19 to play, ensuring that he would play at least one more game in his career.
Marshall was a tour de force in the second half, scoring all 14 of his points in the half and adding 13 rebounds in a double-double effort. Hopkins led all scorers with 15 points, while Jones and Nored each recorded 12.
After a 10-turnover first half in which the heat and humidity in the Palestra seemed to affect ball handling, Butler committed just three in the second half.
Defensively, Nored and Hopkins helped hold Zack Rosen, the Ivy League Player of the Year, to 11 points on 3-of-10 shooting. Penn was just 4-for-20 from three-point range.
