Purdue 76, Michigan 59
AJ Hammons celebrates Purdue's victory.
Midway through the second half, CBS cut to a shot of John Beilein giving Moe Wagner an on-the-fly lesson on post defense. Wagner had just committed a shooting foul on Purdue center Isaac Haas and was subsequently pulled for Ricky Doyle.
On Purdue's ensuing possession, Haas bullied Doyle down low and drew another shooting foul. Any lessons Beilein gave out this afternoon came far too late to salvage Michigan's chances of reaching the Big Ten final and locking up an at-large bid.
Instead, it'll be a stressful Selection Sunday after the Boilermakers dominated the Wolverines in the paint. Michigan played all four of their centers; none provided resistance to the fearsome duo of Haas and AJ Hammons. Hammons finished with 27 points, 11 rebounds, and three blocks; Haas added 11 points in only nine minutes. Michigan's big men combined for ten points—seven by Mark Donnal, who played only 15 minutes due to foul trouble—and four boards.
Purdue opened each half with a big run—8-0 to start the game, 9-0 to open the second half—and whenever Michigan threatened to close the gap, the Boilermakers beat them back with dominant post play; Purdue scored 44 points in the paint to Michigan's 28. Despite being overwhelmed on the interior, the Wolverines frustratingly declined to double-team Purdue's big men until less than four minutes remained; when they finally did so on Hammons, the double was weak, and a few quick passes around the perimeter resulted in a Rapheal Davis layup.
Derrick Walton (14 points, 5 assists, 4 steals) and Muhammad-Ali Adbur-Rahkman (15 points, 7/11 FG) did their best to overcome Purdue's considerable advantage inside. They got little help. Zak Irvin and Duncan Robinson shot 2/12 combined from three-point range; the Wolverines were 6/25 as a team. The Boilermakers made two fewer three-pointers—on 13 fewer attempts.
Now Michigan, which entered today as the last at-large in the field on the Bracket Matrix, will nervously await their postseason fate.
This game negates yesterday's win. NIT it is.
March 13th, 2016 at 12:16 AM ^
That's not a big deal for 18-22 year olds. The body has amazing recuperative powers at that age. When these kids are in high school, they are playing in AAU tournaments that require them to play 2 games a day and 4 per weekend.
Regarding the student manager, maybe they need to add a few more and split the work up if they are going to split practice time.
Pickles...yummy
March 12th, 2016 at 10:49 PM ^
March 12th, 2016 at 10:56 PM ^
Are you drunk? Your post doesn't respond to his suggestion at all.
March 12th, 2016 at 11:16 PM ^
March 13th, 2016 at 10:22 AM ^
Are you even reading what you're replying to? And you're self-contradictory. And i'm not sure what dillusional means. Is that illusioned with dill? I like dill. Dill pickles, on salmon, maybe a little dill-cream sauce on chicken.
March 13th, 2016 at 10:18 AM ^
They're not doubling development time for the players and they players arent' getting 30 practices each, troll. The players are getting the 15 practices they are allowed and the coaches are coaching 22.5. Because there is 2 hour overlap on 4 hour practices that don't run at quite the same time. The COACHES are working more hours. Not the students.
Nice try with the concern trolling, though.
That being said, I'm sure it's hard on student managers because their days are significantly longer.
This game was a perfect demonstration of why people are so frustrated with Beilein. Our inside presence is MAC quality, our opponent has better athletes virtually every game, and we’re mediocre at the one thing he supposedly emphasizes in recruiting. Duncan Robinson is shooting 35.4% from 3 since Big Ten play, so why is he here? Why did we recruit him from a DIII school?
Even when we get the occasional, random heroic effort, it doesn’t even matter because we can’t stop anyone taller than 6’7. I mean look at Purdue’s 2nd half shot chart. Shit. My. Ass.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/playbyplay?gameId=400870862
I assume Beilein's plan last summer was that Robinson would be 10-15 mpg guy, and Chatman would be the starter. It doesn't really address your bigger point, but Robinson could've been useful in a reduced role. For better and for worse Robinson hit a bunch of threes against some awful competition and Chatman disappeared until yesterday, and playing time was disbursed accordingly.
I don't get why Beilein has all these guys on the roster (Donnal, Doyle, Wilson, Wagner) who aren't allowed on the floor at the same time. When you're getting steamrolled in the paint like that, it's too much to ask of Irvin, Robinson, MAAR, and Walton to post similar eFGs on lots and lots of jump shots.
was to have LeVert play 30+ minutes and Duncan play 10. The beneficiary of LeVert's injury was Duncan. The beneficiary of Spike's injury was MAAR. Let's face it, we lost 1 1/2 starters due to injury.
March 12th, 2016 at 10:53 PM ^
That's not correct. Robinson and LeVert started together. In fact, Robinson's most productive part of the season came with LeVert in the lineup. The loss of LeVert has really hurt him; he was getting a ton of wide-open looks every game, and that stopped happening without Caris.
March 13th, 2016 at 12:54 PM ^
what hurt Robinson was a combo of scouting, regression to the mean and little bit of Caris being out. The Bahamas tournament was back-to-back-to-back so very little scouting being done, and non-conference games early in the season are generally scouted a lot less vigorously, plus, there was very little tape on Robinson or evidence about what he could (and can't) do.
Once teams realized you can't leave him, the secret was out and he became a lot less useful on offense. And once teams realized he is TERRIBLE at defense, that's when our Drating plummetted deep into the 100s and people just abused him. He was a matador yesterday. When we recovers short, he has absolutely no chance to stop anyone driving to the basket.
He needs to be a 10-20 minute specialist that can only play when the matchups are favorable if this team is going to be any better next year. Chatman should have played more in the second half yesterday. Seemed like the IU shot gave him confidence, he did a great job gaurding Swanigan in the first half, which allowed Irvin to defend the wing where he belongs on defense. Robinson is just a massive defensive liability.
buy a fucking clue. Levert was the starter!!!!
Perfectly stated.
Bottom line is in college basketball you need NBA players to win big. There's 1 on this team and he's been injured the past two years. Recruiting MUST get better. No more of this under the radar 3 star bullshit. We need legitimate top 60 players at every position and some 5 stars sprinkled in.
He can't hold a gun to Jaylen Brown's head. They've been close on guys and missed late. It happens. I'm frustrated too that we haven't had the recruiting upswing from the Conference Title/Final/Elite 8 three year run, but I pretty much chalk it up to the whims of kids.
If you are a top recruit and want to go to the NBA, you're not going to play for Beilein. His system prepares players to play in his system.
Love those guys. Great players. Never forget Stauskas blowing kisses to Breslin crowd. But, I don't really think a top recruit wants to play in the D-league. Beilein got them noticed, but you can't say his system has done them any good in the NBA.
Are you responding to me? I agree that people saying Beilein isn't coaching guys properly are just barking up the wrong tree. Beilein's coaching actually really prepares guys for the modern NBA game; he just doesn't have crazy-elite athletes.
he's a troll. I knew he'd show up again after we lost today.
March 12th, 2016 at 10:38 PM ^
You mean underrated 3 star kid and Plan C recruit (Hardaway), borderline 3/4 star kid (Burke), low 4 star kid (Stauskas), underrated 3 star kid (Levert), and low 4 star kid (Morris). McGary is the one real exception. GRob ended up high in the rankings but committed to Beilein as a three star.
There's no question we need pros to win big. But to say it needs to come from elite recruits completely ignores Beilein's track record.
Isn't that the definition of not being able to recruit?
Take how U-M approached over-offering. When Battle committed, U-M pulled back from Langford because we were out of scholarships. But later in that same cycle, as Sam Webb pointed out the other day, U-M reversed course and offered Bridges even though we were still out of scholarships. (This was after losing both Battle and Langford.)
Now, it's no one's fault that Battle decommitted, but the Langford end of this is obviously a recruiting failure. They blew their shot at a player because of a policy that was clearly misguided, given that they immediately dumped it. This is the sort of thing that fans who follow this team closely have reasonable, major frustrations about.
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They are absolutely legitimate complaints about some of his recruiting, but what happened with Battle and Langford was just the worst possible outcome, and something I'm not sure Beilein could have really planned on. And yes, you should always recruit expecting that something will fall through, but at the same time I'm sure Beilein didn't want to be stuck with a Crean situation where you are booting kids from the program to make room. It probably wasn't going to happen either way, but that wasn't as terrible a decision as how some people view it in my opinion.
I have a bigger issue with some of his in-game decisions (auto-bench has driven me crazy, his inbounds plays have historically been weak) than how he recruits, especially when you look at the guys he's brought in. I mean, people complain about lacking talent, but both Walton and Irvin were highly-regarded guys, as was Chatman and (to an extent) Donnal. What has hurt is these players haven't evolved and matured into the stars they were set to replace. But it's not like he's recruiting terrible players.
actually consider us? I don't follow basketball recruiting the way I do football, but it does seem like the area isn't producing players at the same level it did 8 to 10 years ago, let alone 20. I remember the parade of guys Amaker missed on, Malik Hairston, Joltin Joe Crawford, others. But has the PSL/Catholic League/Saginaw/Flint really been producing the way they used to? The Region was good for us a few years ago for a reason.
Which would you rather have? As frustrating as this team has been, having Scott Drew or Josh Pastner seems far worse.
But do you really think watching uber-talented kids come in and never come close to reaching the next level wouldn't be tough as hell?
I heard a quote once that cbb is "70% recruiting, 20% coaching and 10% luck"
Pastner sucks, of course. But you look at a guy like Calipari, who basically stockpiles talent and prays. It's going to be about Jimmys and Joes moreso than X's and O's. As much as Zack Novak was a hero here, we needed better players to take that next step.
then fucking calipari would win every year righ? he''s won once. how do you explain the butlers, UConn recently, even izzo. total bull shit.
March 12th, 2016 at 10:08 PM ^
he wouldn't.
March 12th, 2016 at 10:53 PM ^
March 13th, 2016 at 12:00 AM ^
not how it works. You have to be a very good coach, even with talent. John Calipari is better than very good.
March 13th, 2016 at 12:14 AM ^
you keep posting shit like this but you are wrong. that is how a butler goes to back to back title games. it's about coaching and experience as much about elite talent. else, a dirtbag like calipari would be in the title game every year.
March 13th, 2016 at 12:22 PM ^
obvious that you have never coached any sport in your life. I have coached quite the number of football and basketball games. You can't just have talent and win. Coaching matters, especially in basketball.
Recruiter. Talent wins more than not.
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