2021-22 purdue #2
hunter dickinson
moussa diabate
bubble watch
[Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Michigan 82, Purdue 58 Comment Count

Brian February 10th, 2022 at 11:27 PM

Well… we're saying there's a chance? Michigan picked up its first marquee victory of the year by stomping a Purdue team that had suffered its other three losses by a collective total of ten points. This Michigan team looks like a tourney lock. Penn State Michigan looks like an NIT team. The travails of youth.

This was a comprehensive beat down. You can point to the three-point shooting, and yeah that's a factor, but Michigan won virtually every facet of the game. They grabbed 7 more OREBs than Purdue and had seven fewer turnovers; Jaden Ivey was held to merely human levels of production; the eye test suggests the three-point gap was significantly influenced by shot quality.

How did this happen? Well, your intrepid observer has a few different suggestions.

  1. Hunter Dickinson three-point gravity is a thing. Michigan stuck in the game at Mackey because Dickinson was making everything, and Purdue clearly focused on Dickinson pick and pop action early. Juwan Howard anticipated this and the early portions of the game featured a lot of Moussa Diabate dunking the ball as the Purdue big got lifted out of the paint and Mason Gillis was neither aware enough or big enough to do much about Diabate cutting to the rim. Dickinson's gravity was a major factor in Michigan's OREB dominance.
  2. The kitchen sink was thrown at Ivey. After some dispiriting early possessions Michigan straight-up doubled/trapped Ivey on every screen and dared anyone else to make a play. This prevented Ivey from getting into the lane and was effective at reducing his usage and playmaking. Ivey went from 7 assists and 2 TOs in the first meeting to 0 assists and 5 TOs in the second. Ivey still went 5/8 from two and 5/7 from the line, but a couple of those baskets were early before Sink Time and a couple more were in transition. The defensive gambit worked.
  3. Purdue's wonky defense gave Michigan the wrong looks from three. Caleb Houstan is elite at taking standstill three pointers and Purdue gave him six looks. He made four. Eli Brooks got open corner looks as well, and after the initial "oh no Dickinson" phase gave way to more caution about Diabate as a roll man, Dickinson got a number of good looks himself.
  4. Zach Edey got in foul trouble. Dickinson drew a foul on him under a minute in and he played four first-half minutes. Trevion Williams continued to make Trademark Trevion Williams Garbage™™ but not having Edey as an option was problematic in a lot of ways for Purdue; when Williams was in Purdue frequently auto-doubled Dickinson, leading to rotations and the wrong looks from three.
  5. Shooting randomness for the win. Yeah, Michigan dared the nation's leading ORTG guy to bury a few threes and got lucky he missed. Still… would rather rely on Mason Gillis bombing you into the stone age than Jaden Ivey.

All that adds up to an F5 night on Kenpom, and indeed as your author types this and the game makes the system Michigan flies up 20(!) spots and is now projected as a 17-13, 11-9 Big Ten team. That would be enough, probably. Just have to keep shooting a billion percent from three.

Comments

goblu330

February 11th, 2022 at 8:36 AM ^

Sophomores are not young in college basketball.  Particularly if they make the tournament this year, if Dickinson was the only early entry this team would be considered a “veteran” team by this time next year.  Think of freshman Sauce Castillo v. sophomore Sauce Castillo.  That would be the difference.

Joined: 01/07/2022

MGoPoints: 32317

MGlobules

February 11th, 2022 at 5:11 AM ^

Getting to six more wins sure looks easier when you make the first two, as was deemed necessary after away Purdue. And getting to four from here is not hard to conceive after last night, especially with five of the last eight regular season tilts at home. I hope last night's win builds the crowd for OSU, cuz. . . fans R a good thing to have around. 

Joined: 11/17/2008

MGoPoints: 48086

DetroitDan

February 11th, 2022 at 12:29 AM ^

24 point win over the #3 team in the country?  This team could go all the way as the players get comfortable in their roles.  Hunter Dickinson is the best player at Michigan since Glen Rice (with the possible exceptions of Trey Burke, Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, and Jalen Rose).  I'm impressed with the way that Houstan and Diabate have hung in there and improved over the last 2 months.  Brooks is having the time of his life, and DeVante has risen to the occasion.  The bench is getting it done more and more.

Joined: 01/14/2021

MGoPoints: 4087

907_UM Nanook

February 11th, 2022 at 12:36 AM ^

I especially love the stretch where 3li was a cheat code. So many times this season he's been carrying the team and looks like he's tired, maybe not having fun. Have a cold one or three tonight Eli Brooks, and bottle up that feeling for awhile longer!

Joined: 04/01/2018

MGoPoints: 15607

Durham Blue

February 11th, 2022 at 12:41 AM ^

This season has been weird on many levels.  But the volume of well defended half-assed shots going in against us continues to amaze me.  And how many 2 footers did Hunter miss tonight?  We made up for this stupidness by finally clicking from outside and I hope the hot shooting continues...because this was fun.

Joined: 10/09/2008

MGoPoints: 30114

MaizeBlueA2

February 11th, 2022 at 1:28 AM ^

After PSU I said these next 2 games are the season.

One down (in a big way), get the next one and we're truly in business.

I still think this is a team that can get hot late and be a nightmare matchup for a 1 or 2 seed in the 2nd round. But it has to start now. Let's keep this rolling!

Joined: 11/06/2018

MGoPoints: 50553

Bob_Timberlake

February 11th, 2022 at 6:36 AM ^

Is anyone concerned about Dickinson’s “injury”? He seemed in a lot of pain pregame/early game and was on the bike in this game and at the Penn State one. It looked like he was OK as the game progressed and Juwan kept him in there during most of the final garbage minutes. If he’s got a high ankle sprain or something similar it’s lights out for this team with the heavy remaining schedule.

Joined: 03/29/2015

MGoPoints: 7173

Nothing Special

February 11th, 2022 at 6:42 AM ^

That game was awesome!!! Much needed victory for the team and way to do it in style! The team looked perfectly balanced between the inside-outside game. Great shooting will help with that.

It's crazy to think the team that just scraped  by Penn State in an UGLY game could do this to Purdue just a few days later. It's so hard to get any sort of gauge on this team and their realistic ceiling. 

Joined: 02/23/2019

MGoPoints: 1541

xgojim

February 11th, 2022 at 7:46 AM ^

That Ivey was a non-factor due to defensive strategy was certainly a key to the game.  Purdue's first half excuse was Edey sitting on the bench.  But he returned in the second half and the score difference was 20 points worse.  And M's rebounding -- where has that been?  Second chance points were golden, as were the threes of course.

The team's challenge is to follow that up with comparable results on Saturday from that other team that travels north on US23.

Joined: 11/03/2012

MGoPoints: 2356

TrueMaize

February 11th, 2022 at 8:52 AM ^

The student section was electric! Spotted the best student section sign of the season.. when Edey went out with foul trouble someone held up the white board “Where’d the big guy go??”

Aside from the butthurt Purdue fans that sat behind us and whined about every call and no call, screaming (with intermittent voice cracking) that “player x” was a bitch every single play.

 

Joined: 09/06/2015

MGoPoints: 798

MGoGoGo

February 11th, 2022 at 10:39 AM ^

I hope that this is a sign of growth and progress at the end of the season that we saw with so many Beilein . Progress won't be linear and we shouldn't expect all future games to look like this, but hopefully it's reflective of continued improvement that will carry the team into the tournament.

Joined: 12/30/2011

MGoPoints: 3423