Michigan vs. Purdue

We have banger after banger on the college basketball slate for Tuesday night, as there are several excellent games on the card across the four major conferences – Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Big 12 – and also the Big East, Mountain West, and more. But, the unquestioned game of the night is Michigan vs. Purdue, as this 6:30 p.m. ET tip-off on Peacock sets the stage for a fine evening on the hardwood.

This is the one and only head-to-head meeting between the Wolverines and Boilermakers, as this looks to be a No. 1 seed vs. No. 2 seed matchup per The Bracket Matrix, but a home win for Purdue would certainly have the chance to push them into a No. 1 seed discussion, pending how their final five regular season games go and the conference tournament in Chicago next month.

Speaking of conference tournaments, we’ll be covering all 31 of them here at VSiN.com, so make us your home for the rest of the college basketball season and March Madness.

This preview focuses solely on this game, but we’ve got daily best bets from Greg Peterson, as well as his daily spread and total projections, picks six days a week from Adam Burke, and men’s and women’s college basketball projections five days a week from Tyler Shoemaker, the proprietor of the T Shoe Index.

This season, we’ve also connected with CBBAnalytics.com to access their data and I’ll be working that into my article. Use promo code VSIN30 for $30 off at CBB Analytics and find your betting edge.

Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook as of February 16, 5:30 pm PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits.

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Michigan (-1.5, 156.5) vs. Purdue

6:30 p.m. ET (Peacock)

The Wolverines are putting a perfect record away from home on the line here with this visit to West Lafayette, as their only defeat of the season came in Ann Arbor against Wisconsin on Jan. 10. That was actually a Quadrant 2 game at the time, so Michigan is still unblemished at 9-0 in Quadrant 1 games and 4-0 in Quadrant 1-A games, which this visit to Purdue is.

Purdue has dropped four games this season, including two of them at home, falling to Iowa State on Dec. 6 and Illinois on Jan. 24. That December loss was a standalone event, but they dropped three in a row from Jan. 20-27 before firing up their current eight-game winning streak, including a thoroughly dominant road performance over Iowa on Valentine’s Day. Whatever happened during that skid has been fixed by Matt Painter, as Iowa has turned in three of their better defensive performances in that stretch and has also made at least 12 3-pointers in three of those four games.

Michigan is the No. 1 team in the nation for KenPom, Bart Torvik, Haslametrics, and Evan Miyakawa, while Purdue is anywhere from No. 8 for KenPom and Haslam, No. 7 for Torvik, and No. 6 for Miyakawa. In other words, this is a bona fide top-10 matchup with a whole lot of efficiency on both ends of the floor and should be a tremendous game.

Overall, Torvik and KenPom have Purdue as the higher-rated team offensively, but both have Michigan as the top team in the country on defense. One huge difference between the teams is shot selection on offense, as Purdue is far more reliant on jumpers than Michigan. The Wolverines have a Rim & 3 Rate, so shot attempts at the rim and beyond the arc, of nearly 87%. Purdue, meanwhile, is below 70% because their 28.8% shot share on Close Twos is 357th out of 365 Division I teams. They are, however, one of the top shooting teams in the country on those jumpers to offset the lack of layups, tip-ins, and dunks.

Looking specifically against their Big Ten brethren, Purdue is second in adjusted offensive efficiency per Torvik and fourth in adjusted defensive efficiency. However, Michigan is shooting better on 2s and leads the conference in eFG% offense. The main difference offensively between the two teams is that Purdue has a 12.8% TO% in conference play and Michigan has a 16.1% TO%, which ranks 13th out of the 18 teams. That’s not a bad number, though, and is actually 157th in the nation in conference-only games.

Michigan is the better offensive rebounding team between the two as far as Big Ten games go and they are nearly +15% in 2P% differential. Purdue, meanwhile, is just +3.2% in 2P% differential. Opponents are also shooting 34.4% from deep against the Boilermakers compared to just 30.2% against the Wolverines in conference games. The only caveat is that per Torvik, Michigan has played the worst conference strength of schedule so far, while Purdue has played the 13th-ranked slate of the 18 teams.

Michigan really balances out the playing time, thus the per-game numbers are pretty spread out as well, but Yaxel Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr., and Aday Mara are the biggest stat fillers, ranging from 14.4 to 11.3 PPG and 7.7 to 7.0 RPG. The 7-foot-3 Mara will have interesting assignments here against 7-foot-4 Daniel Jacobsen and 6-foot-11 Oscar Cluff, who have combined for 59 of Purdue’s 77 dunks on the season.

Cluff is one of four Boilermakers averaging double figures, led by Braden Smith with 14.7 PPH and he’s also one of the nation’s top facilitators with 8.9 APG. Fletcher Loyer (13.5 PPG) and Trey Kaufman-Renn (12.4 PPG, 9.0 RPG) are the others ahead of Cluff.

Michigan vs. Purdue Prediction

These are two very strong basketball teams. But, it is worth noting that Purdue’s worst defensive performances in conference play by eFG% defense have come against Penn State, UCLA, Iowa, and Illinois, allowing an eFG% over 64%. In terms of shot share on Close Twos, Penn State is No. 2 and Iowa is No. 3 for the season among the conference members. Opponents are shooting 55% on 2s against the Boilermakers and Michigan is the most effective team in the conference at getting to the rim. They deserve to be the road favorite here.

Pick: Michigan -1.5

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