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Filling in for DD, Greg Rakestraw once again hosts and is joined by Butler Basketball Head Coach Lavall Jordan. Butler has just recently released their non-conference schedule and Jordan talks about what he expects from Butler’s early competition in the upcoming season and how he believes they will fare.
What do you expect from playing in the Hall of Fame Classic in Kansas City?
“That’ll be great we’re playing in the Hall of Fame Classic down there. Some really great competition and we were paired up in the Bahamas last year with Oklahoma and Stanford and they will both be in Kansas City along with Missouri. We don’t know who we will match up with first that’ll come out at a later date but an opponenent on a neutral site and all those things playing good programs and good coaches, setting yourselves up for later in the year at the NCAA tournament but I think more importantly the rigors of the Big East conference and knowing what you need to do to get prepared and all these things will line us up in getting ready for the Big East.”
Why do you believe you guys have so many big name programs on your schedule earlY?
“Well I think now, the end in mind always is the NCAA tournament at the end of the season. We actually didn’t get there last year, it wasn’t due to the schedule it was due to us not performing to the games we had on the schedule so good or bad you need to win enough of the games you have that you have on the schedule regardlesss. I think there are coaches are looking at their non-conference schedule and us knowing we need to get 18 Big East games and then outside of that needing to have a quality schedule to prepare you and give you a chance in getting an at large bid for the NCAA tournament and it is important so some of the other conferences are doing 20 game schedules that have more than 10 and we have more than 10 and a good round robin. Some of the numbers play into it while looking at opponents, getting on the road counts. A little bit more than they used to on the metric system. We need to have a true roadgame, last year we were at Florida and they came back to us this year. We’re returning the game of Ole Miss, we’re going to Ole Miss. Two of the most important things are recruiting and scheduling to be a consistent program.”
Lavall Jordan prepares for the upcoming season as it will be his third season as head coach of the Butler Bulldogs. He hopes to get his team back to the NCAA tournament after missing it in the last season.
