Kellen Dunham Ready To Lead Butler Bulldogs

Butler Bulldogs’ guard Kellen Dunham is ready to step up and lead his team in 2014.

Kellen Dunham was recruited by the Butler Bulldogs out of Pendleton, Indiana due to his ability to shoot the basketball. He has taken his game to a new level as he enters his junior season, and is a complete scorer and is reminding quite a few Butler fans of former star Gordon Hayward who is know making maximum money in the NBA with the Utah Jazz.

Through the first two games of the season, Dunham has averaged 22.0 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game. Those numbers are fairly solid, but they will need him to step up his game as a playmaker as he continues to play against better competition. Last season with Butler, Dunham averaged 16.4 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 1.7 assists.

As you can see, the main area that needs improvement in his game is his passing. He hasn’t had to do much passing throughout his career as the number one scorer on most teams that he has played on, but that isn’t an excuse for the lack of assist numbers that he has had in his collegiate career thus far.

That being said, his leadership role has grown this season and the Bulldogs are asking for a much more vocal year from him. He is one of the veterans on the team and he will be asked to step up his game and use his experience to help them late in games. Dunham will also be asked to help mentor some of the younger players on the team, and he has done an excellent job throughout the first two games.

Against Chattanooga in the second game of the year, Dunham showed the ability to get to the foul line as well. He shot 10-12 from the free-throw line, and he needs to keep up the aggressiveness. One of the common denominators among lethal scorers at any level of basketball is that they get to the free-throw line early and often in games.

It’s going to be a very entertaining season for the Butler Bulldogs, and Dunham looks prepared to step up and accept the challenge of being a leader. He has the skill to be one of the more dominant scorers in college basketball, but he’ll need to keep up the type of aggressiveness and shooting ability that he has shown in the first two games. Expect to see him continue to be very successful moving forward this year.