Michigan Basketball Flexed Different Muscles vs. Purdue
Michigan basketball flexed its muscles on Saturday against Purdue, but it wasn’t in the way we’re used to seeing from the Wolverines.
Had you told me Michigan would play Purdue and make five of its 20 3’s and have only one player score more than 10 points, I would have said there’s no way the Wolverines win.
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In fact, that’s literally what I said in the preview.
Talking about the first matchup between these teams, which Purdue won:
"Michigan was connecting from deep (11 of 27), which is why it was able to stick around for as long as it did, but if the Wolverines aren’t going to hit at least that many 3’s in this game, there’s no reason to expect a win."
Conventional knowledge said my logic was absolutely correct. This is a team, after all, that’s predicated on shooting the lights out. What I failed to account for though—as I’m sure just about everyone else did—was a defensive performance better than any we’d seen so far this season.
Michigan has struggled all year on the defensive end of the court, especially on the interior, and lately the Wolverines’ on-ball defense was looking especially bad as well.
A team like Purdue—with three quality big men, two of whom are are towering at 7-foot and 7-foot-2—should have been able to do whatever it wanted against Michigan on the inside. And it did, but only for the first minutes of the game.
The biggest mismatch on the planet on Saturday was Zak Irvin trying to guard Caleb Swanigan. Irvin’s got the length, but he doesn’t have the muscle to compete one-on-one with a player like Swanigan for an entire afternoon. It was immediately evident as Swanigan got multiple looks early that looked like something being simulated in practice.
From then on, though, Michigan played some of the best team defense we’ve seen this season. Purdue was still trying to work in the post—as it should have—but the help defense coming from Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman and Duncan Robinson was superb. They were in great position to give the necessary help, and they both have active and disruptive hands. Robinson also had the advantage of being able to use his length to alter shots.
Abdur-Rahkman was also active outside of the lane, recording three steals.
Mark Donnal played tremendously with AJ Hammons and Isaac Haas too. Donnal was obviously outmatched physically against two of the stronger bigs in the Big Ten, but he was smart with his positioning and forced them (especially Haas) to go away from their comfort zones, which resulted in many misses. Hammons and Haas went a combined 9 of 21 from the field.
Ricky Doyle was also in on the action, playing well with his big body.
The best stretch of the game for the Wolverines was late. Michigan held Purdue scoreless for the final 3:13 and went on an 11-0 run to gain a needed victory over a quality opponent. Just before that run started, down 56-50, KenPom gave Michigan a 6.8 percent chance to win.
With the defense playing better than ever, it was only right then that Michigan also out-rebounded the Boilermakers, who entered the game as the top offensive rebounding team in the Big Ten and the No. 2 defensive rebounding team. Michigan outmatched the Boilers 39-35 on the boards and pulled down 11 offensive rebounds to Purdue’s 7.
It was the first team all season Purdue was outperformed on the glass.
The value of Zak Irvin’s monstrous second half performance can’t be understated, and neither can Walton’s late buckets and free throws, but that doesn’t matter at all if Michigan doesn’t crack the code on defense and out-rebound the top rebounding team in the Big Ten.
It wasn’t raining 3’s, and Michigan didn’t get out in transition very often, which are two things you would have expected to see from a team like the Wolverines beating Purdue. It was a matter of playing incredible team defense, especially on the interior, and toughening up on the boards. Dan Dakich during the broadcast commented that Michigan is a team that does all the little things right and is usually hitting shots and so on, but the toughness wasn’t there.
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On Saturday afternoon against Purdue, it was, and that’s why the Wolverines suddenly aren’t dead anymore.