My Two Cents: First Blowout Loss in a Year for Purdue is Still Tough to Understand
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — It would be easy to consider Purdue's 82-58 beatdown at the hands of Michigan on Thursday night as an outlier. A one-off. A bad night at the office against a team that felt comfortable and confident at home.
And that would all be correct.
But it doesn't make it any easier to digest.
This was a drubbing in the worst way, a take-your-lunch-money, steal-your-girl kind of game where you simply shake your head and wonder how that happened. Because facts are facts, and this simply does not happen to No. 3-ranked Purdue.
It's been more than a year since Purdue has lost by double-digits or more, going all the way back to Jan. 22 last year when they lost 70-53 at home to Michigan in a game that Sasha Stefanovic missed because of COVID.
They don't lose this way.
They were 21-3 entering this game, and had just worked their way back into first place with a crazy-impressive 16-point win over Illinois on Tuesday night. They looked like world beaters Tuesday — and they looked completely lost on Thursday.
And that just can't happen.
You know I'm a glass-half-full guy, and I'll find the positives. I can find none from Thursday's game, other than the fact that it only counts as one loss and the sun did come up on Friday morning. (Well, sort of. It's snowing and gloomy here in Ann Arbor.)
There was so much bad from this game, especially coming from a Purdue team that had just reeled off six straight wins since losing at Indiana on Jan. 20. And the big-picture things that went wrong are all bell-ringers. Put any of these things together, and Purdue will have a hard time winning.
Such as:
- THREE-POINT SHOOTING: Purdue led the league in made threes (233) coming into the game and Michigan was dead last (133), a 100-basket difference. But Michigan went 12-for-21 from deep, and Purdue was just 4-for-18. The four made threes was the lowest total of the year. That's a 24-point swing — in a game that ended with a 24-point deficit.
- TURNOVERS: The Boilers were sloppy with the ball throughout, committing 14 turnovers. Michigan had only seven.
- REBOUNDS: Purdue got outrebounded 35-25 overall, and gave up 13 offensive rebounds, which simply cannot happen. That's an effort thing, sad to say, and it wasn't there last night.
- DEFENSE: Purdue wins with offense most nights, and their defense is average to above average at best. Thursday night, it was awful. They let point guard DeVante' Jones into the lane far too easily, and power forward Moussa Diabate had his way inside. It was very disappointing to see Purdue react so poorly to some of Michigan's new wrinkles that we didn't see last Saturday when Purdue beat them 82-76 at Mackey.
The thing to remember, though, is that this is just one loss. Michigan, even though they are just 13-9 on the season and 7-5 in the Big Ten, were the preseason favorites to win this league. Let's not forget that.
But during that six-game winning streak, Purdue won by an average of 11,.7 points per game, and looked very good doing it. They got back in the Big Ten lead, moved back to a No. 1 seed in NCAA tourney bracket talk, and still have proven that they can beat you in a variety of ways.
They also have proven on Thursday that they can be beaten.
For a team with national championship aspirations, this is a tough loss to swallow because it exposes so many flaws with this team. They aren't going to win many games if they get a combined six points from guards Sasha Stefanovic and Eric Hunter Jr., who had three points each and had more combined turnovers (3) than baskets (2).
They aren't going to win many games when Mason Gillis gets completely outplayed at the four spot. He had a very difficult time matching up with Moussa Diabate, and Purdue was horrible with team defense in adjusting to Michigan's new-look dives to the basket. Juwan Howard and his still had a hell of a good game plan.
Purdue also isn't going to win many games when they let teams go on runs and not come back with an answer of their own. It was 24-all with seven minutes to go in the first half, They were outscored 58-34 the rest of the way.
That's a beatdown.
“As a team, I feel like we just didn’t hit shots tonight,'' Purdue sophomore Jaden Ivey said. "It’s alright, we just have to come back and hit shots on Sunday. We started slow, and we just didn’t have it. They made more plays than us. Obviously it’s frustrating, but we can’t dwell on this. I don’t (see any carryover). I’m already past this game. Obviously it sucks to lose, but I’m already on to Maryland.’’
Stefanovic put his bad shooting night in the rear-view, too. They made too many mistakes, he said, and they'll learn from it after watching film and be better down the road.
“You watch film and move on, and be ready to go,'' Stefanovic said. "You’d like to think so (moving on after a loss). You’ve got to learn from your mistakes and try not to replicate them. Coach Painter always says you’ve got to learn from wins, not just losses. Moving forward, we’ll use our maturity to get better.
“We just didn’t come ready to play. We had a lot of breakdowns defensively, they out rebounded us, they made their open shots. We weren’t communicating well enough, with ball screens especially. We had a big win Tuesday and a big loss tonight. That’s the Big Ten. You’re playing a great team every night.’’
Senior center Trevion Williams said it's probably not a bad thing if this beatdown hurts for a while. They'll use it as fuel, he said.
“It’s definitely going to linger a little bit, but we want it to linger. We’re going to use this and progress,'' Williams said. "They executed well and played with a lot of energy, and that was something we lacked. That beat us. Purdue beat Purdue.
“We don’t have to overthink it. They played really well tonight. They played harder than us, and made shots. That’s life on the road. The shots don’t always fall and you don’’t get calls. Respect to Michigan. They switched up a lot of things offensively, and we kind of struggled with that.’’
Sure, this has been a tough stretch, with five games in 12 days and some brutal travel circumstances because of last week's winter storm. So it is important to remember that the sky is not falling. It truly is just one loss. Michigan can do this to people. I saw them do it to Indiana in Bloomington a couple of weeks ago too, winning by 18 at Assembly Hall when no one — including Purdue — had been able to win there.
What it's done is put Purdue back in chase mode in the Big Ten race again. They're a half-game back of Illinois and Wisconsin now, with six league games to go. What Thursday did was reduce their margin of error.
It also gave us a reason to be concerned that Purdue can't win six games in a row come NCAA Tournament time either. But that's a premature thought, because they just did win six in a row, against a schedule that could look very similar to what they might see in March.
So step away from that ledge. This is still a very good team. They are still capable of making a whole lot of noise. They are, at least in my mind, still the best team in the Big Ten.
All we learned Thursday was that they aren't a perfect team.
And we already knew that, didn't we?
Related stories on Purdue basketball
- GAME STORY: Purdue's stay atop the Big Ten didn't last long after suffering its first blowout loss of the season Thursday night at Michigan. The Wolverines won 82-58 thanks to red-hot three-point shooting. CLICK HERE
- LIVE BLOG: Relive Purdue's game with Michigan with play-by-play in real time live from Crisler Center in Ann Arbor. CLICK HERE
- "WE WANT TO BE BIG TEN CHAMPIONS": Purdue basketball is tied with Illinois and Wisconsin at 10-3 at the top of the Big Ten standings. With seven games left to play, the Boilermakers are looking to attain the goal of a conference championship this season. CLICK HERE
Tom Brew is an award-winning journalist who's worked at some America's finest newspapers, including the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Indianapolis Star. He also owns the book publishing company, Hilltop30 Publishing Group, and he has written four books and published 16 others.