Shortly before tipoff at the Michigan men’s basketball team’s Big Ten season opener, which it lost 80-57 at the hands of No. 12 Purdue, Michigan coach John Beilein announced that sophomore point guard Darius Morris wouldn’t be starting.
Morris, the Wolverines’ go-to man this season who averaged 15.8 points and 7.5 assists per game entering Tuesday’s contest against the Boilermakers, was replaced in the starting lineup by junior guard Stu Douglass.
Before the game, Beilein released a statement explaining his call to not start Morris.
“It’s a privilege to start at Michigan,” Beilein said. “Recently, Darius lost that privilege by disregarding some of our core values. Darius understands this decision, and we will grow together from this.”
Neither Beilein nor Morris would comment on how Morris disregarded the core values, but it was made clear that the punishment would only last one game.
“I made a mistake and apologized to my teammates, and we’re ready to move forward,” Morris said after the game. “I learned from this experience. I’m going to learn from this game.”
WOLVERINES LACK SCORING DISPERSION: The Wolverines ran into the locker room down just four points after trailing at one point by 16. The Boilermakers (1-0 Big Ten, 12-1 overall) had jumped out to a quick 19-3 lead in the first 10 minutes, and it looked as though they had an easy grip on the game.
However, just after the Boilermakers took their biggest lead of the first half, Douglass knocked down a jumpshot that marked the start of his 13-point first half show. But in the second half, Purdue came out and kept Douglass in check, only allowing him two points.
It wasn’t just Douglass who was guarded tightly. Purdue is known as a team that plays a suffocating man-to-man defense that pushes most players outside of their comfort zones.
Douglass, who finished with 15 points, was the only Wolverine (0-1, 10-3) to register double-digit scoring. It’s the first time this season that only one player has scored in double digits during a game.
In the previous seven games, when Michigan was on a seven-game win streak, at least three players had accounted for double-digit scoring every game.
Against Purdue, Morris and freshman Tim Hardaway Jr. — who lead the team in scoring — registered nine points each.
Since the Wolverines lack a true scorer, Beilein has discussed the importance of every player contributing and having several players score at least 10 points a game — especially during the Big Ten season when games finish in the 70- to 80-point scoring range.
DEFENSIVE BREAKDOWNS: Coming into Tuesday’s game, the Wolverines knew that Purdue seniors JaJuan Johnson and E’Twaun Moore were going to be a force to be reckoned with.
The pair makes up one of the best guard/post combos in the country, averaging nearly 40 points and 14 rebounds a game this season. The Boilermakers have gone 56-7 over the past four years when both score in double-digits.
Redshirt freshman Jordan Morgan and freshman Jon Horford held the 6-foot-10 Johnson in check during the first half, only allowing him 10 points and five rebounds. And the guards stayed with Moore, who only accounted for seven points and two rebounds.
But in the second half, the pair exploded, putting up 26 points and grabbing 10 rebounds combined. Their scoring load was slightly lessened by junior Ryne Smith, who went 5-for-6 from behind the arc, finishing with 17 points for the Boilermakers.
Beilein attributed Purdue’s second-half offensive surge to the Wolverines’ defensive breakdowns.
“You see it with football teams. A team turns it over, and the defense has to get right back out there and it’s hard for them to have focus,” Beilein said after the game. “Picture if you’re the ones that actually turned it over, and then you got to go play defense. It’s hard to do that.”
Michigan had 14 turnovers for the fourth time this season, while Purdue had just eight.
Following the game, Beilein said Purdue is the most physical of all teams in the Big Ten, and playing them first was “a great teaching experience.”
“This is not a team that will shut down after this,” Beilein said. “They’ll learn a lot, but there’s a lot of experiences to be gained (and) a lot of mental toughness to be gained from this. This is a whole different level.”