It’s been 30 days since the Michigan men’s basketball team or the No. 12 Purdue men’s basketball team has lost a game — neither team has suffered a defeat since November 27 — but when the two teams face off tomorrow afternoon at Crisler Arena, one team will walk away with its first loss in a month in the Big Ten season opener.
The Wolverines (10-2) are riding a seven-game winning streak with their last lost coming at the hands of the University of Texas El Paso in the Legends Classic. In that game, sophomore Darius Morris displayed his finesse on the court — with 20 points, seven rebounds and four assists, a performance that few expected to become the rule rather than the exception.
The Boilermakers (11-1) have a steady six-game win streak of their own, and their last loss was handed to them by Richmond in the championship game of the Chicago Invitational Challenge. In Chicago, senior guard E’Twaun Moore notched 16 points and grabbed nine boards for Purdue.
Since that game and during their three previous seasons with the Boilermakers, Moore and his counterpart in Purdue’s post-guard game, senior post player JaJuan Johnson, have proved themselves to be a dynamic tandem and at times, unstoppable forces. The pair is the nation’s highest-scoring duo in college basketball, and Purdue is 56-7 when both score double digits.
“(Purdue will) come in here, play hard, tough, strong, physical defense and offense,” Michigan coach John Beilein said Monday after practice. “Between E’Twaun Moore and JuJuan Johnson, they have two just All-Big (Ten) players, and they’ll be difficult to stop. We’ll have to rely on our team to find ways to score and our team to find ways to stop people.”
Michigan’s tight help defense will try to keep Moore’s and Johnson’s scoring in check. Johnson, a 6-foot-10 senior who averages 19.8 points and 7.9 rebounds per game, has been compared to Oakland’s highly touted 6-foot-11 Keith Benson.
Benson, who averages 16.7 points and 10.3 rebounds per game, was contained by Michigan’s young post contingent when the Wolverines faced Oakland a week and a half ago. The projected first-round NBA draft pick only scored 11 points and grabbed just seven boards.
But Oakland lacked the guard complement that Purdue features with Moore. Moore averages nearly 20 points per game and, at 6-foot-2, grabs 5.8 rebounds a game. Despite this, the guard that Purdue coach Matt Painter believes could be the driving force in the game is Morris.
“You’ve gotta be able to come around Darius Morris and not allow him to get to the basket, get to the freethrow line and get other guys open shots,” Painter said in a teleconference on Monday. “He uses his ball skills to break you down and they’ve done a very good job of running their offense and being patient and waiting for the defense to break.”
Michigan may find it hard to be patient on offense with eight players potentially seeing their first Big Ten action tomorrow. With the Big Ten conference as strong as it is this season, every moment will count at the end of the season when NCAA Tournament bids are on the line.
But the Wolverines seem to have surpassed their projected last-place finish in the Big Ten before the conference season has even started.
“Nothing really surprises me with coach Beilein,” Painter said. “You look at his track record and all his years as a head coach and he does a good job of assembling a team that fits his system. And they put a lot of skill out there. It’s a lot of guys who can dribble, pass and shoot … The name of the game is winning and the team he has right now is doing a good job of that.”