Michigan Wolverines Basketball: Michigan at Purdue -- Preview

Posted at 1:00pm — 1/3/2015

Michigan Wolverines Basketball: Michigan at Purdue — Preview

Them Folks Sure Love Basketball

Both Purdue and Indiana have storied basketball programs. Indiana comes to mind first because of the Great One’s (Robert Montgomery Knight) flamboyance and notable wins for three decades. During that time, Knight and Gene Keady of Purdue staged their own basketball version of the ten-year war, albeit the span was longer than ten years. Those were no-holds barred and zero mercy affairs. Fans with some age probably miss those awaited match-ups.

In fact, Purdue leads the conference with 22 basketball titles.

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After coming off great years, conference titles and NCAA success, Michigan finds the talent level a little down and still very young. Since 2010, Purdue has struggled to reach the heights, the ascendency of Ohio State and Wisconsin, plus the continued success of Michigan State has made it difficult for some traditional powers like Purdue and Indiana.

Purdue and Michigan have many similarities. Both teams have bad losses and a total of five, not a good thing entering the conference season. Neither team has a player capable of rising up enough over several games to dominate the opposition. Both teams have guys that can get hot and rule one game. Purdue will put its marbles on a coordinated offense that has some effectiveness and a tough defense that has just been pedestrian. Michigan will hope the shots fall and the offense improves. Both teams are adequate enough to beat a solid opponent on a good night and bad enough to lose to a lesser team.

There is one other commonality: both teams won squeakers in their conference opener. So, both teams are now in a position to be 2-0; both teams need this win, as for Purdue and Michigan the climb to get into the NCAA tournament is uphill.

Expect no niceties Saturday and expect intense play from Purdue. It looks like Spike Albrecht will carry the load at point guard. This injury takes away Walton’s driving options for the most part. A toe can heal very slowly, the cure being rest. Humans rarely rest a toe and in basketball a bad toe can affect jumping, change of direction, overall speed and shooting stroke.

Predicting this game may be easier than trying to forecast Plinko results, but nothing would be a surprise. Purdue does have the advantage of playing at home and that may indeed be the deciding factor.

Michigan Wolverines /

Michigan Wolverines

Michigan has a somewhat favorable first part of the league schedule and must cash in on the opportunity. All a coach can do is practice, prepare, and make good decisions concerning how to use the personnel. Coach John Beilein has two such decisions: (1) how much to play Derrick Walton Jr. and (2) who to play at the four spot- Kameron Chatman or Aubrey Dawkins.

Dawkins looks like he wants to play and Chatman still looks lost. When Chatman gets good spin and location on the ball his shot is nice. But most of his shots have been way off center and nothing else has been contributed. Being slower than last year, it becomes tough for Michigan to have two of the three true bigs on the floor at the same time.

Beilein will not give in and the players better not as well, or February and March will be months to forget.

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Written by GBMWolverine Writer — Doc4Blu

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