2020-21 purdue

1/22/2021 – Michigan 70, Purdue 53 – 13-1, 8-1 Big Ten

Hey, remember that from 10,000 years ago? Really something, that game that happened in the immediate aftermath of a positive COVID test from Sasha Stefanovic. That decision was then rendered moot by a department-wide shutdown because apparently nobody at any level of government has enough sense to quarantine someone coming back from the place where the scary new COVID variant originated.

But anyway: Michigan rolled into Mackey, jumped out to a double digit lead, and never looked back. Without Stefanovic a bunch of usage fell on Jaden Ivey, who cannot shoot but enjoys it nonetheless. Michigan forced Trevion Williams into a 6/19 shooting night by turning his usual reliably okay shots into reliably terrible ones. Purdue never got it back to single digits after Michigan went up 25-14.

Just another day in the Pax Juwanica. Michigan doesn't seem fully put together just yet—there's a lot of balls booted out of bounds and the talent level on the roster is good but not overwhelming. And they just roll onto the home courts of NCAA tournament teams and casually batter them into dust. This one does come with an asterisk since Stefanovic is shockingly impactful for a guy with 15% usage…

cupcakes excised

…but it didn't feel like one gunner zipping around the court was going to change much about the shape of this game.

Onward, with a title in the crosshairs… ah right. That.

[After THE JUMP: doubling gets dodgy]

1 hour and 12 minutes

The Sponsors

Thank you to Underground Printing for making this all possible. Rishi and Ryan have been our biggest supporters from the beginning. They're also behind our Ann Arbor Institutions t-shirt program. They have awesome custom tees and hoodies and low, affordable prices. They also have tons of great Michigan apparel that you can wear proudly to support the maize and blue! Check out UGP’s holiday gift guide at ugp.io/holidaygiftguide and use the promo code NEWYEAR for 25% off your next purchase!

Our associate sponsors are also key to all of this: HomeSure Lending, Ann Arbor Elder Law, the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, Michigan Law Grad, Human Element, The Phil Klein Insurance Group, FuegoBox, and Information Entropy.

1. The Shutdown

starts at 1:00

Two weeks(?) without Michigan athletics because somebody wasn’t quarantined after coming home from the U.K. We discuss why it was necessary to shut down, how it went down, and how it might play out. We’re just baffled that this failure was allowed to happen.

The rest of the writeup and the player after The Jump]

Michigan never trailed in a dominant performance at Mackey Arena, ending Purdue's four-game winning streak and cementing their hold on first place in the Big Ten.

Let's hope the victory doesn't come at a cost. This game never should've been played. Less than two hours prior to tipoff, Purdue's official men's basketball account tweeted a "Roster Note" that Sasha Stefanovic, who played in Tuesday evening's game against Ohio State, would sit out the next three games after testing positive for COVID-19. The Boilermakers would play, however, and their communications guy was so "VERY confident" in the team's protocols that he tweeted such while locking the responses. This passed as protocol, evidently:

Some further info on Michigan-Purdue going forward.

A Purdue official says the school is confident Sasha Stefanovic's positive test is an isolated incident with limited spread and it's been almost 67 hours since anyone had contact with Stefanovic (Tuesday, 11 pm).

— Brendan Quinn (@BFQuinn) January 22, 2021

Sasha Stefanovic to miss 17 days/3 @BoilerBall games due to testing positive for COVID-19. Reason Boilers aren't on pause? Purdue says extensive protocols followed: no cumulative 15 minutes of contact, masks everywhere, no eating on bus/planes, everyone own room, daily testing.

— Andy Katz (@TheAndyKatz) January 22, 2021

The Big Ten didn't step in. The game went on as scheduled. I hope they get away with taking this needless risk. That's what it was, though: needless.

As for the basketball itself, the two most heralded Wolverines combined to shoot 5-for-17 from the field, both true centers battled foul trouble against a team with a 7'4 backup, and only two M players finished in double figures. I deign to point out the officiating could easily be described as one-sided towards the home team. Yet this game was never particularly close.

a more literal floater than most [Campredon]

While Hunter Dickinson and Franz Wagner never got their offense going, Isaiah Livers was on the mark from the outset, finishing with a game-high 22 points on 17 shooting possessions. Livers crammed the rest of the box score with ten rebounds, three assists, two blocks, and only one turnover in one of his best all-around games of the season. Eli Brooks added 11 points on 5-for-8 shooting with some tough finishes around the basket.

Michigan's stout defense held the Boilermakers to their lowest point total of the season, which made effective secondary scoring somewhat unnecessary; Purdue also had only two double-digit scorers. Star center Trevion Williams needed 21 shooting possessions to tally 14 points. Guard Jaden Ivey was even less efficient in his first start replacing Stefanovic, going a wild 3-for-14 from the field but getting to the line for half of his dozen points. As a team, Purdue shot 20-for-65 with 11 assists and 14 turnovers.

well contested [Campredon]

Sticky perimeter defense and solid contributions from Austin Davis (six points, 3/6 FG) and Brandon Johns (four points, an offensive rebound, an assist, and a steal) helped weather early foul trouble by Dickinson. Juwan Howard even got some solid first-half minutes with Terrance Williams playing next to Johns and, for a brief stretch, using him next to Wagner with the latter defending Trevion Williams in the post. The Boilermakers rarely got all the way to the basket, got a clean look at the rim even less often, and couldn't hit their jumpers.

Thus, another blowout in another fashion. Michigan heads into the weekend 13-1 overall and 8-1 in the Big Ten, 1.5 games clear of Iowa and Wisconsin, which are tied for second at 6-2. They've won every game they've played with all their starters and every victory since Christmas has been by at least 11 points.

The upcoming round of COVID tests may be all that can stop this team. At full strength, they've been amazing. I hope the so-called adults in charge of all this don't ruin it by ignoring the lessons we should all have learned in the ten months we've dealt with this pandemic up close.

[Hit THE JUMP for the box score.]