2023-24 purdue

On the road against the #2 team in the country without their point guard, Michigan probably didn't have much of a chance. The game that unfolded was predictably lopsided, a Purdue romp by a final score of 99-67. The margin already exceeded the KenPom and Vegas spread by halftime and only got worse in the second half. By the time the final five minutes arrived, the crowd in Mackey Arena was more interested in whether a free throw contest could net them free chicken and  whether the home team could hit 100 points than they were which team was going to win. That much was clear in the opening minutes. The last notable moment of the game was a Purdue player with nine points on the season pulling off a highlight reel dunk. It was really that bad for Michigan Men's Basketball tonight.  

The first half showcased just how much better Purdue was than the Michigan team they faced today. Superstar big Zach Edey scored just six points and Purdue missed multiple point-blank layups, yet the Boilers still hung 49 on Michigan and led by 24 at halftime because they rebounded their misses and were white hot from three. With Dug McDaniel left back in Ann Arbor due to his ongoing academic suspension, the Michigan team started a lineup with Jaelin Llewellyn starting at PG in his place, alongside Nimari Burnett, Terrance Williams II, Olivier Nkamhoua, and Tarris Reed Jr. It was not a roster ready to compete. 

Purdue came out shooting it well from distance, a trend that would continue for the entire game. They built an 11-4 lead by the first media timeout and an early bucket showed off the kind of night it was going to be from Michigan defensively. Michigan's rotations lost track of Braden Smith in the corner, who caught the pass from Ethan Morton and could either pull-up for a clean look at three or drive the hoop. Smith put the ball on the floor, drove to the rack, and laid it in virtually uncontested. That score put Purdue ahead 15-4 and foreshadowed a night with little defensive resistance from the Maize & Blue. 

[Campredon]

If there was one bright spot for Michigan defensively in the first half, it was Tarris Reed Jr.'s showing against Zach Edey, managing to keep Edey quiet and force his post touches to begin farther out from the basket. Reed contested Edey well when the two were on the court together and held the star's scoring to a minimal. Unfortunately, as Reed was doing that Herculean work in the paint, Michigan was struggling to defend the long line. Purdue started 4/5 from three and then feasted when Michigan's offense turned the ball over with increasing frequency. The Michigan offense, lacking its primary scorer in McDaniel, was often stagnant and had no hope of keeping pace with the torrid Purdue attack. 

The offensive bright spot for Michigan in the first half was McDaniel's replacement, Jaelin Llewellyn. Purdue had things looking like a romp when they were up 30-13, but Llewellyn engineered his own 9-2 run with back-to-back triples followed by a layup. That kept Michigan hanging around in the distance, but Purdue buried the Wolverines with a spurt before halftime that more or less ended the game right there. After Jace Howard hit a pair of free throws to make it 34-23 Boilers, Purdue went on a 15-2 run over the half's final 3:21 to lead by 24 at the break. Purdue had their way offensively, throwing in threes from all over, including Fletcher Loyer's make at the horn, and tacked on two more points when Mason Gillis rebounded his own missed free throw. Michigan's offense sputtered in between, bricking shots from distance and having little in the way of creation. At halftime, Michigan trailed 49-25. 

The second half was no different in terms of trajectory. Michigan's only defensive positive in the first half, Reed's defense on Edey, was made minimal by a pair of quick fouls on the Michigan big. Reed picked up his fourth with 17:12 to go and would eventually foul out, limiting him to only ten minutes in the second half. With Tarris limited, Edey scored 10 points in the second half and reached a double-double. Michigan leaned heavily on the three in the second half, with 3PAs making up 48.6% of their total FG attempts in the second half, but made just 27.8% of them, an ice cold shooting night for the whole team.

[Paul Sherman]

If there was an offensive positive in the second half, it was Terrance Williams II's hustle, snagging five offensive boards and scoring eight points, a bit of hustle and energy you didn't expect from a player on a team that was already getting blown out. Of course, TWill hustling and competing wasn't anywhere near enough to salvage Michigan from a humiliating defeat. Purdue continued to have their way on offense, lighting Michigan up at a rate of 58.3% in the second half from three and grabbing eight more offensive rebounds. Michigan kept the deficit in the mid-20s for the first eight or so minutes of the second half, but by the halfway point, Purdue was leading by 29 and attempting difficult fast-break alley-oops. 

It was not a serious basketball game. Matt Painter and Juwan Howard both went to their benches in the final minutes of the second half and it was up to the walk-ons and deep cut scholarship players to try and finish Purdue's quest for 100. They came up a little short, but Carson Barrett was able to score his first points of the season on a three to push Purdue's total to 97 and Brian Waddell's dunk may well make it onto SportsCenter. The only notable for Michigan in the final stages of this embarrassing rout was George Washington III hitting a couple threes, his first points in over a month (GW3 finished with 10). 

The box score from tonight's game is bloody. Purdue shot 52% from the floor to Michigan's 34%. The Boilers were a sizzling 14/21 from three while Michigan finished 9/29. Purdue also scored 40 points in the paint to Michigan's 22. The home team had a rather ho-hum night from the reigning National Player of the Year (16 points on 6/13 from the floor) and shot only 65% from the free throw line, yet still put up 99. Thirteen different players scored for Purdue. They turned the ball over just seven times, zero in the first half(!!). Only three Wolverines scored in double figures, Llewellyn, Williams, and Washington, the latter of whom's points all were in garbage time. 

[Paul Sherman]

The 32 point margin of defeat is the largest in Juwan Howard's tenure. That Michigan didn't even come close to covering the astonishingly wide 17.5 point Vegas line is the biggest indictment of the program's current state yet. They gave up 1.42 PPP to Purdue, their worst clip in over six seasons. Michigan's defense now ranks 152nd in efficiency per KenPom. Neither of Tommy Amaker's sub-.500 teams, nor John Beilein's first team, had a defense ranked that low. After starting the season 3-0, Michigan has lost 12 of their past 16 games and still has four more to go on the road without Dug McDaniel.

There's little of interest to say about this game other than that Michigan was thoroughly outclassed by a team they didn't belong on the same court against, a sign of how far this program has fallen in the past three seasons under Juwan Howard. Where three years ago the Wolverines were handling the Boilers in West Lafayette, and even two years ago were fighting a tight battle in this very venue against an elite Purdue team, tonight Michigan was dispatched like a mid-major.

After the game, former Michigan great Nik Stauskas unleashed a public tirade in the comments of the team's Instagram account about the team's lack of passion and pride. In fairness to Nik, this game was not competitive, even for one second and while getting blown out by a team as great as Purdue isn't unexpected, something about tonight felt different. Unlike most Howard era defeats, frustrating late game collapses and the like, tonight saw Michigan's head get bashed in with a garden hoe, laying it bare just how far away this program is from anything resembling respectability. 

[Campredon]

At this current moment, Michigan is the laughingstock of the Big Ten. A once-mighty power of the league getting literally dunked on by the 12th or 13th best player on the opposing roster. Michigan is only 10th out of 14 teams in the conference in KenPom, sure, but they've lost to two of those four teams below them and now sit dead-last in the conference standings. A program that had an active streak of five consecutive Sweet 16 appearances only a couple seasons ago and made the NCAA Tournament 10 of 11 seasons is going to miss the tournament for the second straight year and this time around, they were eliminated from contention in December. 

Michigan feels like a team dead in the water. Maybe they can find a way to turn it around, but it is not trending in the right direction to say the least. If they don't, the fanbase's ire will only grow and calls for Juwan Howard's removal as head coach will escalate. Their next opportunity to turn the narrative around and prove this was rock bottom is Saturday when Iowa comes to town, one of only three games that Torvik favors them to win the rest of the season. That game is scheduled for 5:00 PM EST and will be broadcast on FS1. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Box score]

THE ESSENTIALS

WHAT	#79 Michigan (7-11, 2-5 B10) at #2 Purdue (17-2, 6-2 B10)
WHERE	Mackey Arena West Lafayette, IN
WHEN	9:00 PM
THE LINE	Kenpom: PU-17 Torvik: PU-20
TELEVISION	Peacock (streaming link)

THE OVERVIEW

Purdue Basketball is having its 2023 Michigan Football season, with a game-bending senior up front who put off the pros to get in a run with some underrated sophomores coming into their stardom. Also along for the ride are some longtime contributors who chose to come off the bench rather than transfer because This Right Here is The Year. They're led by a brilliant, 100% authentic, Hall of Fame coach whose one knock is an inability heretofore to win on the biggest stage.

The difference: Purdue Hoops ran over a murderer's row of Xavier, Zaga, Tennessee, Marquette, Bama, and Zona in the nonconference, then lost road games at both of the Big Ten's mediocre NUs.

Like 2023 Purdue Football, Michigan is a rickety nuisance that looks tougher on paper than the field of play, is playing this one without a critical guard, and is about to get steamrolled. There the comparisons end, except their visit to West Lafayette is being played far too late at night on Peacock.

If you're looking for reasons to get your login credentials back from your brother and stay up for the nadir of Michigan basketball since before Zak and Stu, it's that what Purdue does will work equally well on #3 Arizona or #95 Indiana. Until they prove otherwise, we can assume the general Painterness of this program that leads to upsets against Farleigh Dickinson is still baked in. Who's the Farleigh Dickinson now? We are. Go…wildcats? Corporals? [does a google] Knights!

[Hit THE JUMP for murder at the hands of good people.]