Michigan basketball unable to slow down No. 1 Purdue in 75-70 loss at home

The last time Michigan basketball beat the No. 1 team in the nation, it was Dec. 13, 1997 — the same evening Charles Woodson won the Heisman Trophy.

While the U-M football team was able to turn back the clock in the fall, going 12-0 in a season for the first time since that same 1997 season, Juwan Howard's squad had no such luck on Thursday night at Crisler Center.

After leading most of the first half, the Wolverines gave up a 15-0 run late in the period and they could never get all the way back. Michigan got within five with 8:17 to play, and within three with five seconds left, but couldn't put stops together in the 75-70 loss to Purdue in front of a sellout crowd.

"Definitely felt like another one of those frustrating losses," said junior Hunter Dickinson. "A couple bounces here and there, timely 3's they hit if they don't go in, we're sitting here with a W right now.

"But another frustrating loss because we feel like we played good enough to win, but at the end they made a couple more plays than us."

Michigan is now 2-26 all time against No. 1 teams and has lost 13 straight.

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Purdue center Zach Edey, the front-runner for national player of the year, was in the middle of everything for the Boilermakers, collecting a team-high 19 points and nine rebounds. Fletcher Loyer added 17 points while Braden Smith had 10.

Michigan's All-American center Hunter Dickinson more than matched Edey, finishing with a game-high 21 points and seven rebounds, but the Wolverines couldn't overcome a short-handed lineup that was without freshman Jett Howard with an ankle injury.

"It was like two heavy weights," said Howard of the battle down low. "Two of the best bigs in the country, in our conference competing, nothing I was surprised about. It was fun to watch on the sideline, just more fortunate for Purdue, they ended up winning the ball game."

Kobe Bufkin added 16 points, 11 in the second half, while Joey Baker had 11 and Dug McDaniel scored nine.

Michigan is now 0-7 in Quad 1 games and has fallen into a tie for fifth place in the Big Ten.

Early battle of the bigs

Edey vs. Dickinson was the main event Thursday night and it was a 12-round classic.

Less than 20 seconds into the game, Edey caught the ball on the left block, took a power dribble then spun over his right-shoulder for a left-handed hook off the glass over Dickinson.

Michigan (11-9, 5-4 Big Ten) countered with a pick-and-roll with McDaniel and Dickinson, but the 7-footer missed the floater. The Boilermakers ran a similar play of their own on the other end and Edey couldn't finish the alley-oop and Dickinson responded with a 3-pointer from the top of the key for U-M's first bucket of the night.

"It felt pretty similar to the other (match ups)," Dickinson said. "It's a lot of fun going against another great player...as someone who thinks highly of themself you want to go against the best and that's who (the media) says is the best right now, so it was very fun to compete against him."

Edey scored Purdue's first seven points while Dickinson added an and-1 layup and a pair of free throws to tally eight of Michigan's first 13. Dickinson wouldn't be heard from again until the end of the half while Edey remained a force throughout.

On the first possession after checking back in the game, Edey hit a turnaround push shot over Dickinson to give the Boilermakers a 24-22 lead with 10:45 to play. He would add the next two Purdue (20-1, 9-1 Big Ten) buckets, both hook shots in the lane over Dickinson, to tie the game at 28 before the Boilermakers went on a run.

David Jenkins Jr. made a 3-pointer from the wing on a busted defensive assignment, Edey added another hook over Dickinson, Loyer sandwiched a pair of layups around two Jenkins free throws and then added two free throws of his own to cap a 15-0 Purdue run and take a 41-28 lead with 3:06 to play in the half.

"I didn't even know they went on a 15-0 run," Dickinson said. "So, yeah, that's probably where the game was lost right there."

Michigan — and Dickinson — punched back after going more than five minutes without a point. A Bufkin layup stopped the bleeding before Dickinson buried a long ball from the wing and then added two free throws in the final minute to help the Wolverines close the half on a 7-0 run and cut the deficit to six.

Purdue got 35 of its 41 first half points in the paint or at the free-throw line (9-for-10).

Can't quite come back

Michigan's run was undone almost immediately.

Loyer hit a 3-pointer to open the half before Edey posted Dickinson and finished over him for a quick 5-0 spurt to, but Bufkin wouldn't let U-M go quietly. He took Edey to the rack for a layup and added a mid-range jumper before Dickinson's first points of the second half — a hook over Edey — got U-M back within nine.

Purdue's freshmen, Loyer and Braden Smith, made consecutive baskets of their own, when Bufkin responded with five straight, the last three of which came on a long ball that got Michigan back within 52-46.

"Kobe is big time," Baker said. "He's huge for what we plan on doing down the stretch of the season and what we've done so far this season. He kept us in it, kept us close during a time where we were kind of stalling."

Each time Purdue would seemingly pull away, like when Jenkins hit a 3-pointer as time expired on the shot clock to make it 58-48, the Wolverines would respond; a Baker 3-pointer and consecutive McDaniel floaters got Michigan back within 58-53 with 8:17 to play.

After a Mason Gillis 3-pointer − which Howard said was wide open because of a blown defensive assignment − got the lead back to eight, Purdue would again turn its attention to the paint and this time it wasn't Edey. Freshman Trey Kaufman-Renn hit back-to-back buckets, the second of which he connected on despite a foul from Will Tschetter, to make it 65-55 with 6:28 to play.

He finished with eight points and Purdue ended with a 40-28 edge on points in the paint.

The Wolverines had one last push. Down by nine out of the last media timeout, Bufkin got an offensive rebound and put it back to make it 69-62, but he air-balled a 3-pointer on the next shot attempt and Smith added a layup with 2:12 remaining to extend the lead back to nine.

Dickinson added a 3-pointer with 36 seconds remaining to get back within six before Baker stole the inbounds pass. Michigan missed, but Edey missed the front end of his one-and-one from the line and Baker added a layup to get within four.

Loyer hit a pair of free throws to extend the lead back to six when Baker hit a long 3-pointer in the final 10 seconds to get within three, but two Brandon Newman free throws iced it.

Contact Tony Garcia at apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @realtonygarcia.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball unable to slow down No. 1 Purdue in 75-70 loss