Butler completes season sweep of UIC
INDIANAPOLIS -- The third time wasn't the charm Saturday night for Illinois-Chicago.
The Flames lost to No. 14 Butler 66-50 in the Horizon League tournament semifinals at Hinkle Fieldhouse.
It was the third time Butler (28-3) topped the Flames (18-15) this season.
"We played pretty hard (Friday) night and had to come back and play Butler tonight," UIC coach Jimmy Collins said. "That's not icing on anybody's cake. It was a little tough for us coming back."
Butler will play Cleveland State (21-11) for the Horizon League title Tuesday night. Cleveland State defeated Valparaiso 78-73 in the other semifinal.
UIC hung tough with the No. 1 seed in the Horizon League, trailing 25-23 after a 3-pointer by Robert Bush with 2:59 remaining in the half.
Butler dominated the rest of the half, outscoring the Flames 9-1 to build a 10-point halftime lead. Butler continued its hot shooting in the second half, building a 24-point lead with 12:03 to play.
The Bulldogs were 12-for-27 from 3-point range, two weeks after shooting just 13-for-37 at the UIC Pavilion.
"I thought for the first 17 minutes we played quality basketball," Collins said. "Then we let them do some things to take the air out of our sails."
UIC was unable to cut the deficit to single digits the rest of the way. The Flames were hampered with their inability to shut down Butler's Mike Green, the Horizon League Player of the Year.
Green led all scorers with 19 points while dishing out 7 assists and pulling down 7 rebounds.
"He is a tremendous leader for this team," Collins said. "He looks to set up everyone else, and then when he doesn't get that accomplished, he scores. He is a complete guard."
UIC's Josh Mayo, a first-team all-Horizon League performer, was held to a season-low 5 points, all in the first half. Mayo was hampered by a 2-for-13 shooting performance, including 1-for-7 from beyond the 3-point line.
"They played pretty good defense on me tonight," Mayo said. "The looks that I did have didn't fall. Sometimes they fall and sometimes they don't."
UIC outrebounded Butler 37-32, including a 19-10 margin on the offensive glass. The Flames, who entered the game 11th in the country at 39.5 percent from 3-point range, were held to 28.6 (6-for-21).
Robert Kreps led the Flames with 15 points. Jermaine Dailey (12 points, 10 rebounds) finished his UIC career with his second double-double of the season.
Collins said he was proud of his team for exceeding expectations.
"At the beginning of the year people said we were going to win 10 games and we won 18," he said. "Hindsight says that I couldn't have gotten any better people."