The Michigan basketball team will take part in its most high-profile matchup of the season up to this point, tonight at Mackey Arena against Purdue.
Purdue is 7-2 in the Big Ten and 15-5 overall. They lost earlier this week at home to Ohio State but are ranked 14th in the AP Poll. The Boilermakers are ninth in the Kenpom rankings, while Michigan basketball is 22nd in the AP poll and 12th according to Kenpom.
Both teams have offenses and defenses that rank in the top 26 according to Kenpom. Those are the kind of metrics that support a potential Final Four run. The Wolverines are 6-1 in the Big Ten. They should be 7-0 but suffered an overtime loss against Minnesota on a buzzer-beater.
Beating Purdue on the road would make up for that. It's one way to get that game back so to speak. A loss would put the Wolverines a half-game behind the Boilermakers and two games in the loss column behind Michigan State.
Purdue is a four-point favorite tonight (8 PM EST, Fox). Here are three keys and a prediction.
Be sharp on defense
That's much easier said than done against Purdue in Mackey Arena. Nebraska went in with a top-25 defense according to Kenpom and gave up over 100 points. The Boilermakers just blitzed them with 3-pointers -- knocking down 19.
Purdue doesn't shoot a ton of 3-pointers. They rank 14th in 3-point attempts in Big Ten games but are third in percentage (36.6). Braden Smith makes 2.4 3s per game and shoots 40.2 percent. Fletcher Loyer shoots 46 percent from deep, while C.J. Cox and Trey Kaufman-Renn also shoot better than 40 percent.
Caleb Furst, a 6-foot-10 forward hasn't attempted a 3-pointer this season, but outside of that, there isn't a rotation player on the Purdue roster shooting below 30 percent from deep.
That means the defense needs to be on point. Matt Painter runs some of the best offense in the Big Ten. Smith is the best point guard and maybe the best player in the league. His shotmaking and playmaking are dynamic to say the least.
Smith is scoring 15 points per game, shooting 42 percent from the field, 85 percent from the free throw line, and averaging 8.9 assists (first in the Big Ten). Kaufmann-Renn (6-foot-9) might be the most underrated player in the Big Ten. He's an elite finisher and is scoring 18.3 points per game.
Kaufman-Renn and Smith are a dangerous ball-screen tandem. They each present their own problems, but Smith is also good enough to find the shooters around him.
Undoubtedly, this is the most difficult assignment of the season defensively and we'll see how the Wolverines handle it.