Purdue vs Michigan: Close but no Cigar

Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Purdue came out fighting against Michigan tonight leading at half time and on fire, but they fell short in Crisler to the (probable) soon to be number one team in the nation, falling 68 to 53 after a second half surge by the Wolverines.

Although this one surely hurt after such a great first half, the Boilermakers played with a lot of tenacity and looked decent.  If you compared this team to the EMU performance disaster a  few months ago one would have trouble recognizing it.

Tonight this team had a chance, despite the final score, and showed that they are going to be a threat come Big Ten Tournament time.  This Purdue squad is not someone teams are going to want to play the rest of the season.  They were just missing something, Hammons.  Hammons had an off night, that happens, and it showed but this team still fought.

They were led tonight by Terone Johnson who was 6-14 for 14 points.  Terone played pretty well tonight on both ends.

One of the things that hurt the Boilermakers tonight was poor shot selection by a few players, but that happens with a young team.

Defensively they all played a pretty sound game.  Anthony struggled on both ends of the floor, but overall they didn't let anyone have a huge game for their standards.  Michigan is a team that has the ability to go off at any time.  One thing that stuck out though is that four of their starters were in double digits, most of which came in the second half.

Overall the Boilers shot really well in the first even going 7-15 from three, but went cold in the second shooting 0-9 from beyond the arc.  At one point it just looked like they were  just daring Ronnie to shoot, but that will happen until he can prove he can hit it, similar to Lew Jack.

Although it was a loss, it wasn't as bad as people were saying it was going to be, Purdue covered the spread and played a great half of basketball, but Michigan was just too much.  Tonight was a step in the right direction, and anyway you look at it, we are watching something special form in Boiler Nation right now.

Choo Choo Mothas.