Norlander: Butler rebuilding - Mack's departure forces Butler to rebuild in spotlight

Let me be among the first to address this in elongated form, because by the time November comes the story very well could already be beaten to death.
How's Butler going to do it again?
No, not get to the Final Four; that's not going to happen again, I assure you. (At least I think I can. Butler has quickly made a habit of proving almost anything is possible, though.) This is more specifically aimed toward the thought of: How is Butler -- Brad Stevens in particular -- going to have another tournament-bound, successful season? In case you missed it, it's OK to doubt Stevens and Co. already because the team just lost another player, Shelvin Mack, to early entry for the NBA. This abandonment feels like anything but that for Butler's head coach.

Recovering from Shelvin Mack's loss could prove to be a huge challenge for Butler. (AP)

"It's not bittersweet for me at all. I'm about my guys first and foremost," said Stevens by phone this week, "and if one of my guys [thinks] this is the best thing for him, I encourage him to go."
Stevens said he got the strong inclination Mack wouldn't be coming back next season once the team reached another Final Four.
"You don't think about that stuff as much through the season, but with the way he played in the tournament, getting to the Final Four and playing well again, especially in that first game [against VCU], I kind of got the feeling he was going to leave," Stevens said.
He approached Mack's early-entry decision differently than Gordon Hayward's last season, primarily because the NBA labor situation prompted more players to leave last year. Stevens never resisted Mack's departure, either, inviting all contact from agents who wanted to represent Mack.
"I want them to [talk to me]," Stevens said of the slew of slick and suited men who chase the morphed men who go from college to pro each spring. "You have to identify guys that may be in that position, and so if anyone wants to reach out to them and if our players that are in that situation, I want them to direct them to me. Everyone went through me first, and then after the season was over, he interviewed a few agents."
Stevens' tactics aren't different from a lot of coaches, but it was interesting to hear him talk about Mack in a past-tense tone already.
It's the second straight season Butler (not your average Horizon League resident) has been pilfered a player due to legitimate NBA dreams. Last year, Hayward, the No. 9 overall pick, left the Bulldogs and was drafted by the Utah Jazz. Mack, unlike Hayward, will not sniff the lottery. His NBA ceiling is certainly lower than his former teammate's. Mack has probably put the most dominant basketball of his life behind him.
Yet I think it's reasonable, and likely, Butler will struggle more without Mack than Hayward. There are a number of reasons, of course. The first: In terms of vitality to Butler, talent and playmaking ability, the drop-off from Hayward to Mack isn't as stark as Mack to ... well, who's going to take the reins next year? Mack included, Butler loses six guys heading into next season, four of whom were impact players.
Matt Howard, Shawn Vanzant and Zach Hahn have played their last games in Bulldogs uniforms. So is Khyle Marshall or Andrew Smith or Chase Stigall going to become The Guy? None of those players will be seniors, by the way, and none of them were singlehandedly the reason Butler won one game this year the way Mack, Howard and Vanzant could claim to be. Next season, Ronald Nored and Garrett Butcher will be the four-year guys and have already been given captain status by the team. Nored, as great a leader as he can be, isn't an offensive threat.
"It's all about how you manage it. We're going to have some young guys that are going to have to play," Stevens said. "Some of those guys played at a high level and everyone saw it in national TV for the last three weeks of the season."
We can see this becomes a bit of a compounded issue and is more than just about Mack leaving, but had he chosen to return for his senior year, Butler would be a presumed Horizon favorite.
Even when Hayward was on the team, Mack went head to head with his same-class teammate. Without Hayward this past season, Mack didn't slow or see his game hampered at all. He averaged a career-best 16 points per game, 4.5 rebounds and improved to a 76.9 percent free-throw shooter. His usage rate -- the amount of possessions he directly helped account for a basket getting scored -- was 28.1 percent, a three-year best.
With no Mack this suddenly looks like a group that could struggle to win its league. It's not as if Butler tore through the competition last season; Stevens coached his team to a 13-5 finish in the Horizon, possibly needing the league postseason title to avoid not earning an at-large selection into the Big Bracket.
Stevens isn't nervous now, at least not publicly. You've probably gotten to know the man from afar. Sweating this type of stuff isn't his bag, anyway, but he did acknowledge Mack's overall value and the challenge that will come with replacing that.
"If it was about replacing an individual we wouldn't have been in trouble," Stevens said of Mack's ability. "It's about replacing what they did for your team. Shelvin shot it pretty well for us and had a lot of good moments. We've got to replace those other things, those intangibles, his leadership and what he did for us there."
Come NCAA tournament time, should Butler get there, that's when the realization will hit hardest: This is a new era of Butler basketball. The team will most likely lack the kind of killer Mack was. Even Hayward didn't have the smell-the-blood mentality Mack possessed since he stepped on campus nearly four years ago. In the 2011 tournament, Mack put up 30 against Pittsburgh, 27 against Florida in the regional final and then had 24 in the national semis against VCU. Howard was most definitely the biggest reason, from a player perspective, that Butler made back-to-back title games, but Mack could very well be considered 1A at the top of that list.
In addition to all this, Stevens has lost a very valuable assistant -- and in all likelihood future D-I head coach -- in Micah Shrewsberry, who left Butler to join Matt Painter's staff at Purdue. What Stevens will prep for in the offseason and face head-on come November isn't new. He's a young coach (what, haven't you heard?), but this will be the second time he has had a major retooling job ahead of him. Three years ago, after his first season at Butler, the program lost five seniors after winning 30 games. Stevens spent the offseason taking questions about how he would rebuild.
The class that came in was Mack's. You saw the unprecedented run they just put together. What Butler has done the past two seasons borders on the incomprehensible. So, maybe three years from now it's another group making another amazing run. But next year, we're probably going to have to get used to Butler playing somewhat in the shadows and regressing to what it was before the past two years: a solid, respected program. It says something about the program and Stevens that Butler has reached a level of expectation that's so high, people may be surprised if it only manages to win about 20 games and flirt with the NCAA tournament.
Taking a step back next year isn't a bad thing -- without Mack, it's practically expected. Nearly every team has rebuilding years. For the first time, Butler has to retool while a nation remembers and acknowledges the type of program it has become.