THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

Seth's graphic [click to embiggen]:

Juwan Howard's latest on Isaiah Livers is vague. It doesn't sound like he's playing in the imminent future, though:

"No update yet," head coach Juwan Howard said on Wednesday afternoon. "We're just praying that he continues to keep healing day by day, which he is. He's improving day by day and we're going to see how it goes from here."

Brandon Johns should continue to start; Colin Castleton and Austin Davis are both likely to see significant minutes against a Purdue team that can put two productive big men on the court.

THE LINEUP CARD

Seth's graphic [click for big]:

We added bricks for this game. They're necessary. (Also relative to position; a guard will get one for poor three-point shooting but a big won't unless they take and miss a bunch.)

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the preview.]

THE THEM

Even after 15 games, Purdue isn't an easy team to figure out. They opened the season in the top ten on KenPom but have drifted down to 20th after a 9-6 start. They have a 29-point win against #35 Virginia and two other top-40 wins on their resumé; while four of their losses are against top-40 teams, the other two are against #74 (and dropping) Texas and at #140 Nebraska. On Sunday, they lost 63-37 at Illinois. They had zero double-digit scorers in the 0.60 PPP effort, the seventh time this season they've fallen short of a point per possession.

As the above indicates, this team deeply misses Carsen Edwards, their scoring machine from the last three years who's now coming off the bench for the Boston Celtics. While the defense has remained excellent and the composition of the roster is relatively unchanged, his absence has caused the offense to fall off a cliff, particularly against top competition. And also Nebraska. That's bad!

The Boilermakers lean heavily on their interior duo of 7'3" junior Matt Haarms and burly 6'9" sophomore Trevion Williams. Matt Painter has gone to a number of different starting lineups because of a minor injury to Haarms earlier in the season, Williams's penchant for foul trouble, and attempting to find offense, but he started Williams and Haarms alongside each other for a few games in December and went back to that against Illinois. It's easy to see why he prefers that lineup—here's some eye-opening on/off data from Hoop Lens with guarantee games removed:

In simpler terms: Purdue outscores their opposition by 23 points per 100 possessions when Haarms and Williams share the court. The Boilers are outscored by seven points per 100 possessions when they don't. Much of this has to do with their ability to overwhelm opponents on the glass with their two-big lineup; when they can't do that, their poor shooting and lack of perimeter creation become too much to overcome.

Haarms is a good finisher around the hoop, an excellent offensive rebounder, and he's developed a legitimate three-point shot. He's also an elite rim protector, ranking 21st in the country in block rate. Williams is more of a traditional, ground-bound big man, but he's got a great post game and has top-30 rebound rates nationally on both ends of the floor. He has two issues that plague his game: sub-50% free-throw shooting, which makes it tough to keep him on the court late in close games, and a foul rate of 5.1 per 40 minutes, which can make it tough to keep him on the court at all.

Other sources of offense have been tough to come by. Painter brought in High Point grad transfer Jahaad Proctor as a lead guard to do his best Edwards impression; he hasn't come close to matching his own efficiency and usage from High Point, let alone what Edwards was doing last year. Shooting 43% on twos and 28% on threes, Proctor came off the bench for the first time all season against Illinois.

Sophomore Sasha Stefanovic has done a nice job stepping into Ryan Kline's Just A Shooter™ role, hitting 45% of his 80 three-point attempts, but he's no threat inside the arc and has a surprisingly high turnover rate given his role. With Proctor rendered ineffective, sophomore combo guard Eric Hunter has taken on some playmaking duties even though he's better used as an off-ball player; on an equal number of possessions, he ranks in the 88th percentile on spot-up possessions and the 24th percentile as a pick-and-roll ballhandler, per Synergy.

6'7" junior Nojel Eastern was already one of the weirdest players in the country heading into this season, a hellacious wing defender who played something akin to point forward on offense, either distributing the ball or getting buckets off offensive rebounds, while being zero threat to shoot. Other than assist rate and steal rate, his numbers have plummeted across the board; he's shooting an awful 39% on twos this year, has missed all three of his three-point attempts, is 5-for-17(!) from the line, and has a turnover rate over 23. His O-Rating against top-50 competition is 51.7. That is very, very, very bad. He usually plays around 25 minutes a game.

Somehow, Eastern has not been the worst shooter on the team this year. That dishonor goes to sophomore Aaron Wheeler, who appears to have lost all confidence in his shot. After making 58% of his twos and 37% of his threes in a promising freshman season, he's 8-for-32 (25%) on twos and 15-for-63 (24%) on threes, and he's also seen his turnover rate spike. He went 0-for-5, all from beyond the arc, against Illinois with two turnovers and no offensive rebounds. It was hard to watch. He's been coming off the bench but still getting around 20 minutes a game.

Freshman guard Isaiah Thompson, brother of former Purdue starting point PJ Thompson, has mostly played off the ball, but—guess what—he's also struggling with his shot, going 6-for-25 inside the arc and 17-for-52 beyond it with a 2-for-7 mark at the line. Third big man Evan Boudreaux is getting sporadic minutes based on matchups; he's a good offensive rebounder who's most efficient when getting to the line. He's had a decent three-point shot in his career but is 1-for-13 this season. What the hell is in the water in West Lafayette this year?

THE TEMPO-FREE

Four Factors explanation

Purdue's offense ranks 83rd nationally, and so far they're dead last in Big Ten play at with an 85.5 offensive efficiency—atrocious—through four games. In that context, it's pretty impressive that they're 2-2 so far.

That's because their defense has held Big Ten opponents to a 93.2 OE. They've been a tough defense inside the arc; they give up a ton of three-point attempts, which didn't bite them out of conference but has so far against the B1G. They've been pretty turnover-reliant against conference foes, which could be good or bad news for Michigan, which has generally been turnover-avoidant outside of a few uncharacteristic games early in the season.

THE KEYS

Keep the floor stretched. Michigan can't afford to let both Matt Haarms and Trevion Williams—neither great defenders in space, particularly Williams—camp out near the rim. We saw precisely how that goes in the Michigan State game. Purdue is going to give up a number of good looks. The Wolverines, in particular Brandon Johns, need to be willing to take them and able to hit at least a half-decent percentage. Forays to the basket against Haarms are difficult even before he gets extra help.

Everybody to the boards on defense. In case the rest of this preview hasn't made it clear, nobody on Purdue outside of their current starting backcourt (and Haarms, I guess) can shoot at all this year. The main way they're able to make up for it on offense is by crashing the glass with their big men. This is going to be another area where Johns needs to be on his game, since he'll spend a fair amount of it boxing out a much larger human, either in height or girth. This might be a matchup where Austin Davis is a preferable option to Colin Castleton. 

Attack Williams. The road gets a lot smoother if Michigan can get either Williams or Haarms off the court, and the former is the more likely target—he's both a lesser defender and the more likely of the two to get into foul trouble. Purdue is a much worse team on both ends of the court when they aren't putting both big men out there. Again, Johns should be key here; he's shown enough inside-outside game that he can give Williams problems if he's playing with confidence.

THE SECTION WHERE I PREDICT THE SAME THING KENPOM DOES

Michigan by 4.

Purdue's shooting problems make Michigan's shooting problems look insignificant. Hopefully that continues.