Austin Parkinson has led two seasons of improvement in Indianapolis. Is it time to make the jump to a winning season?
Team: Butler Bulldogs
2023-24 Record: 15-17 overall, 6-12 Big East
2023-24 Big East Finish: Tied for eighth with Providence, earned the #8 seed in the conference tournament by way of tiebreaker
Final 2023-24 Her Hoop Stats Ranking: #178 of 360 teams
Postseason? Yes, believe it or not. Butler got to be in the WNIT, which is not the WBIT, the non-NCAA tournament that the NCAA ran this past season, even after losing to Providence in the first round of the Big East tournament. The Bulldogs beat Bowling Green by 12 in the first round and then fell to Purdue, 62-51, four days later to end their season.
Notable Departures: Just two. Rachel Kent led the Bulldogs in minutes per game last season and was one of two double digit scorers at 10.2 per contest. The 5’11” guard also added in 4.0 rebounds, 2.4 assists and led Butler in three-point attempts per game while knocking in over 41% of her 5.8 attempts. Kent was on a fifth year of eligibility in 2023-24, while Kendall Wingler was on her fourth overall year and third with Butler. She’s elected to wrap up her collegiate eligibility with a season at IU Indianapolis, which you might remember being named IUPUI in the past. Wingler appeared in 25 games for Butler, coming off the bench in everyone one. 2.3 points and just under a rebound per game isn’t all that much, but 12.0 minutes per game isn’t all that much, either. Still, that’s a rotation position in more games than not, so it’s a notable loss for the Bulldogs.
Notable Returners: A lot, actually!
With Kent leaving, Butler returns seven of their top eight scorers, including top scorer Caroline Strande. The 5’11” Wisconsinite averaged 15.0 points per game last season and knocked down nearly 45% of her long range attempts. She also led the Bulldogs in rebounding (7.0/game) and assists (2.7/game). Strande had to settle for a tie for the team lead in steals per game, as both she and follow returner Ari Wiggins averaged 1.3 per night.
I know I said that Strande and Kent were the only two double digit scorers on the Butler roster last season, but you have to keep in mind that the Bulldogs were one of the 30 slowest paced teams in the country last season according to Her Hoop Stats. So that means that Butler has six women averaging somewhere between 8.1 and 3.1 points per game returning from last season, but their pace meant they only averaged 61.2 points per game anyway. 3.1 is still 5% of a team’s total output for a game, so that’s kind of a big deal. Most of these returners averaged more than 18 minutes per game, so that’s a healthy substitution system for Butler.
With that said, Strande is the only returning player who started more than 20 games. Jordan Meulemans has the highest returning minutes average amongst this group at 27.6 per night, and shooting 41% from three helped her average 7.8 points a game. Sydney Jaynes might be the most notable contributor in this section after averaging 8.1 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game, but shooting 26% on threes wasn’t great news for the Bulldogs even if it was less than one attempt per game.
You could take Riley Makalusky, Karsyn Norman, and Cristen Carter and shake them up in a Yahtzee cup and just take whatever best performance you were getting on a given night, and that’s a pretty solid summary of what they were bringing to the table. Almost always played, but rarely half the game, sometimes got to start, did their part, nothing particularly outstanding about any of them. The exception is probably Makalusky’s three-point shooting, as she connected on 41% of 2.3 attempts per game. Carter physically stands out of the group at 6’4”, and Her Hoop Stats has her with the #7 offensive rebounding rate in the country…. in just under 12 minutes per game.
Key Additions: The Bulldogs add four freshmen and one transfer. The transfer is Kilyn McGuff, a 6’0” guard, who comes over to Butler after three seasons at Belmont. This past season, she started in all 33 appearances and averaged 9.0 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.3 assists, and 1.0 steals per game. She had a great sophomore season shooting the ball, connecting on nearly 35% of her 3.4 long range attempts per game, but that three-point shooting percentage dipped under 28% on the same number of tries this past year. She wasn’t a leader for the Bruins in any department as a junior, but she was a pretty big contributor at #2 on the team in minutes per game.
McKenzie Swanson is clearly the most notable of the four freshmen, at least in the eyes of Blue Star Basketball’s rankings. The 6’3” forward from Michigan sits at #187 in the country in their rankings, while two of the other three are “tied” at #400 and the third isn’t listed at all. With that said, the third is probably not ranked because Lily Carmody is from Australia. The 5’11” guard has been a developmental player on a roster in the WNBL in Australia, so if they were seeing pro potential in her already, perhaps she’s a possible immediate contributor.
Coach: Austin Parkinson, entering his third season in charge in Indianapolis. He has a record of 26-36 in his two seasons since moving over from IUPUI.
Outlook: We have to say that things are going well for Butler right now.
The Bulldogs won four games in total in Kurt Godlevske’s final two seasons on the sideline. Austin Parkinson won 11 in his first season, including six in Big East play to double up Godlevske’s 3-33 record in the league in those last two years. This past year, Butler bumped up their win total to 15. They stayed static in the Big East with six wins, but their winning percentage improved as the league went from a 20 game slate to just 18 games in 2023-24.
Things are moving in a positive direction, and you can’t really ask for more than “improve and then improve again” after a 1-27 season that led to a coaching change. That means the big question for Austin Parkinson’s third season in charge is “can you do it again?”
Having seven returning rotation players balances out the loss of one of your only two double digit scorers. Returning Caroline Strande, who was the leader in leading scoring, rebounds, and assists, solves a lot of roster and rotation problems on its own. Parkinson’s biggest riddle heading into 2024-25 is figuring out who can/should/needs to step up to replace what Rachel Kent was doing for the Bulldogs. The answer could be Kilynn McGuff on her own, but she’s going to have to shoot the ball a lot better for that to be the case. Butler miiiiiiiight have pinned a lot of their improvements from Year 1 to Year 2 on being a top 10 three-point shooting accuracy team, and there’s no guarantee that they’re going to do that again, especially without Kent leading the team in attempts.
That’s the Butler Question Marks side of the equation. There’s also the Big East Question Marks side of it as well. In short: Butler can’t improve in the league standings unless someone else goes down. We’ll get to it more as these team previews go along, but there’s legitimate questions to be asked about what 2024-25 holds for all three of the teams that 11-7 in the league last season. If some combination of St. John’s, Villanova, and Marquette aren’t going to be NCAA tournament competitive this coming winter, that opens the door for Butler to find wins that they couldn’t find last year. I don’t want to say that Butler can suddenly turn into an NCAA tournament bubble team this year, because that seems like too much of a jump. But it certainly seems like the combination of continuity at Hinkle Fieldhouse and potential doors opening in the Big East could lead to a notable jump up for the Bulldogs, if they’re ready to make the jump.