By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — In Da’Sean Butler’s world, it wasn’t what you would call a good day, this Saturday’s performance against Seton Hall.
Oh, he did score 14 points, but his shot was somewhere on another planet, hitting just four of 12 from the field, one of six from 3 and 5 of 10 from the free throw line.
He also had six rebounds, a couple of assists and three steals, but he plays to a different measuring stick than a lot of other players.
Da’Sean Butler has become THE MAN.
And when you are THE MAN, doing what mere mortals do just isn’t enough.
In a way, it is surprising that Butler has become what he has. You really didn’t see it early in his career.
Oh, he was a nice player, good enough that John Beilein played him in every one of the 36 games that year, good enough that coming off the bench he averaged double figures, but he seemed like a complementary player, not THE MAN.
That title was supposed to go on players with out-of-this-world athletic skills, with blazing speed, great leaping ability, strength that puts you in awe. It’s someone like a Kevin Pittsnogle, who is so unique that you can’t cover him, or Joe Alexander, who is so gifted you don’t want to cover him.
Butler, damn nice player, but a star?
Well, he played his second year and started every game, showed improvement in every area, especially rebounding, and by his third year he was doing things no one really believed they’d see him do, part of it being Bob Huggins’ confidence in him, more of it being his devotion to squeeze every bit of ability out of his body that he could.
It isn’t, however, until a player becomes a senior, reaches maturity, knows it’s the final year, that he really finds himself. That is what’s so awful about the NBA, which snatches so many players away before they can reach their best, before they can take over a team as a leader as well as just a player.
Sometimes you have to really study the numbers before you realize just how much a player has grown. With Butler, for example, you might say he averaged 17.1 points a game and 17.5 this year, which isn’t much of a difference.
But this year he has played as much guard as forward and his assists have mushroomed, doubling from 60 in 35 games last year (1.7 a game) to 86 in 26 games (3.3 a game) this year while his turnovers went down proportionately, 81 last year (2.3 a game) to 43 (1.6 a game).
Guard or no guard, his rebounding is also better than last year.
What there is no way to measure is the leadership role
he has taken on this team, for it is that which makes him THE MAN rather the man.
And, believe it or not, this is probably what is going to get him a chance in the National Basketball Association.
Oh, they’ll measure his hops, all right, and put a stopwatch on him. They’ll poke him and prod him and he’ll come out average, maybe a little below in some of those areas. But these NBA people are smart to know that if they are going to invest their money in a player, they want something more.
They want someone who makes those around him better, someone they can count on when it becomes crunch time, someone who can take over a team rather than just take over a game.
Butler knows they’re looking at him from above, that there will be debate about him.
“I can’t say anything to change people’s minds,” he said.
It isn’t about words at this point.
“If they don’t see me as the best athlete, I can’t do anything about it except go out and play my game for myself, my school and the state,” he said.
If that’s not enough, then, really, there’s something wrong with the way this world spins around.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
