Butler and the Pacers both fall last night

Bad night for the teams here in Indianapolis as the Pacers fall to the Magic and the Butler Bulldogs fall to the Detroit Titans.

Indiana Pacers
How do you explain that the Pacers lose twice to the Magic both times at home?  Granted this was a back to back, and the Pacers played a tough game against the Mavericks the night before.  But it's just hard to figure out.  From the sounds of the game, this felt like one neither team wanted to win though.  The Pacers tried to make it interesting there at the end as they furiously came back from twelve down.  This seems to be the type of team that can make those runs to at least try to get back in the game, but they can't always finish that.  The offense sputters a bit at times too and those stretches are just bad to watch.  Things got a bit chippy in this one as well as a pair of double technical fouls, which lead to an ejection of Quentin Richardson. Looks like the Pacers reputation might be spreading around the league.  Doesn't surprise me that Danny Granger would be jawing away with someone, he tends to get frustrated when his game isn't going well, and that's what happened last night.  So these teams will meet again one final team in March, and it's at Orlando, which I will predict is going to be a Pacers win as the road team has won each time.

Butler Bulldogs
The fact that I couldn't even find an ESPN recap of this game goes to show how far down Butler has fallen. Just think two years in a row of making it to the National Championship game, and now this team might not even sniff the NCAA Tourney. It's going to take a run in their own league tourney to make it there and that's going to be rough as Butler is in the lower half of the Horizon League.  This loss puts them at 13-12 overall, 7-6 in the Horizon right around fifth place three games out of first.  Those top two spots are so important to earn, but I don't think Butler will be around there.  Just gotta finish this season strong, and do what they can in the league tourney.  This is another team that goes through those tough stretches of bad offense.  The defense can lock down and try to get some offense going.  But guys just can't seem to make baskets when they need to.  And they have guys like Andrew Smith who should be more aggressive about scoring.  But he dishes it out or waits too long to take it to the basket.  Chrishawn Hopkins had a great start to the season and then dropped off mightily as well.  Just hard to find the guy who can take this team on his back and get them going.   I like to think Roosevelt Jones can be that guy and maybe he starts it now because he has stepped up his game and he's only a freshman.  Just a rough season for the Bulldogs, but who knows what kind of magic they can find here in the final games.