WEST LAFAYETTE One half ended with a late surge by the Michigan women”s basketball team to take the lead. The other half ended with any comeback attempts quickly snuffed out by Purdue.
The 33-31 halftime lead was encouraging for Michigan but not as much as the 73-64 loss at Mackey Arena was disappointing.
With All-America candidate Katie Douglas sitting out with an ankle sprain, Cammille Cooper also an All-America candidate seemed like the obvious pick to take over as the ultimate scoring threat from No. 6 Purdue.
While Cooper took care of business with 24 points, freshman Shereka Wright, starting in place of Douglas, also emerged in the game as a go-to player with 25.
“I think you just saw the depth of Purdue”s team to lose a player of Katie Douglas” magnitude and have a freshman, for God”s sake, step in and do the job she did,” Michigan coach Sue Guevara said.
The Wolverines were also shorthanded with co-captain and point guard Anne Thorius missing her second-consecutive game with her own ankle sprain. Thorius was in uniform and warmed up with the team, but never made an appearance.
Perhaps Michigan was missing her senior leadership on the floor, as Purdue started to take over the momentum.
Guevara thought about utilizing Thorius” experience, asking her if she was ready to enter the game after Purdue took a one-point lead. But Guevara did not want to sacrifice the rest of her season for this game, especially since Michigan had been playing so tough without Thorius.
“We”ve got a lot of games left and I didn”t want to take the chance of getting her hurt,” Guevara said. “I had confidence in this team that they could get it done. We almost did.”
In the absence of Thorius, Alayne Ingram produced from the one-spot, scoring 20 points and collecting nine assists while playing all 40 minutes.
Purdue”s Wright was a major reason for preventing the upset. She answered an 8-0 Michigan run that gave the Wolverines a 33-28 lead late in the first half with a 3-pointer to send Purdue into the break with some positive energy.
“It kept us in there,” Wright said of her big shot. “We knew we had them. Going into the lockerroom, (we thought) “this is our game.””
Purdue”s zone defense provided some fits for Michigan, hurting its ability to dominate the inside. Michigan could not combat the defense with perimeter shooting either as it went 2-of-7 from behind the arc.
“The zone can either make you look really smart or really dumb,” Purdue coach Kristy Curry said. “Obviously, it made us look smart.”
For as often as Purdue”s defense stifled Michigan, there was often a rebound, turnover or missed free throw waiting for the Wolverines on the other end to keep them hovering within striking distance.
Despite the close score, the excitement and intensity of both the Boilermakers and the crowd gave a feeling of Purdue being in control.
At 9:26, Cooper posted up to give Purdue a 51-50 lead that it never relinquished.
“I thought we played well pretty much the whole game, we just couldn”t hold on,” Ingram said. “It was just up and down. There has to be a point where we can get the lead and maintain it, and we didn”t do that today.”
Michigan was as close as 64-61 at the 1:27 mark in the second half, but could not come up with a defensive stand in the closing minutes as Cooper and Wright combined to score 13 of the final 14 points for Purdue.