Rewind to around this time last year, and you’ll get the same Big Ten matchup on the hardwood as the Michigan Wolverines took on the Purdue Boilermakers. The difference is the roles are reversed — No. 1 Purdue came to Ann Arbor to face Dusty May’s No. 20 Michigan squad.
The Wolverines earned a 75-73 win that helped them ride momentum to an eventual Big Ten Tournament Championship. But it very nearly went the other way because of one of the most talented veteran players in college basketball, Braden Smith.
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The Wolverines led, 73-67, seemingly insurmountable with 39 seconds left in the game. Smith thought otherwise, hitting consecutive three-point shots and even having a shot at a game-winner as time expired. Despite missing that final shot, Smith was spectacular with 24 points, six rebounds and seven assists.
May went to the podium and had nothing but glowing remarks to say about Smith.
On Tuesday night, Michigan will face that same challenge, this time with Purdue as the underdog and Smith with another year of experience under his belt. He is even more efficient than he was a season ago, averaging 14.7 points, 8.9 assists and 4.0 rebounds per game while shooting 48.2 percent from the field and 41.5 percent from deep. He’s one of the most difficult players to guard in the country.
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But the facilitating element is what makes him even more dangerous. That pick-and-roll dilemma May mentioned a year ago remains today. 6-foot-9 forward Trey Kaufman-Renn and 6-foot-11 center Oscar Cluff each play beneficiary on the other side of Smith. It’s the same philosophy Smith has run all four years of his career, including with Zach Edey early in his career. He’s perfected it to the point that he broke the Big Ten career assist record in a win over Wisconsin in January.
The key to beating Purdue is picking the right poison to knock Smith off his game. In January’s three-game skid and the loss to Iowa State earlier this season, teams found ways to throw different looks at the Boilermakers, with slowing Smith down at the center of it.
The Cyclones put on an offensive clinic, shooting 54 percent and hitting 11 threes on their way to an 81-58 win. It forced Smith and the Boilermakers to play fast to try and keep pace, and instead, he had six turnovers in the loss.
Counting that one game as an outlier, it’s interesting to see what Indiana, UCLA and Nebraska did for Purdue’s three-game skid. The commonality — it takes all five defenders to slow him down.
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Nebraska threw a 1-3-1 defense at Purdue that completely stymied its offense down the stretch and resulted in a comeback win for the Cornhuskers. Meanwhile, UCLA switched everyone onto Smith during the pick-and-roll to make sure he never had an ounce of space. It had a degree of success, holding Smith to 12 points and a 4-to-4 assist-to-turnover ratio in the 69-67 win for the Bruins at the Pavilion.
In Purdue’s loss to Indiana at Assembly Hall, senior transfer Conor Enright played all 40 minutes while guarding Smith. He credited, “the bigs hedging, the guys pulling over, tagging. It was five guys guarding the ball every single time, so not just me but everybody out there.” Smith finished 6-for-14, scoring 14 points and turning the ball over four times.
So the question Michigan is which poison to takeaway, and that will depend on how they construct the lineup. The Wolverines are privileged to have some really athletic big men; Yaxel Lendeborg and Morez Johnson will probably both see their fair share of defensive opportunities tonight.
But the fear will be Purdue picking on Elliot Cadeau and Aday Mara. Mara is an excellent post defender, but I don’t think he has the lateral quickness to keep up with Smith on the perimeter. Vice-versa for the 6-foot-1 Cadeau against the Boilermakers’ bigs. Help defense and a perimeter look is open for C.J. Cox or Fletcher Loyer, who are both better than 35 percent shooters from deep. The typical Michigan lineup works well if Smith is struggling to shoot, but otherwise, these two give Purdue a pretty distinct advantage on the defensive end.
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Instead, I could see Michigan going “small ball” with Johnson seeing a majority of the game at the 5, Lendeborg at the 4, Roddy Gayle Jr. at the 3, Nimari Burnett, at the 2 and Trey McKenney at the 1. In this scenario, McKenney would be the “smallest” player on the court at 6-foot-4, 225. Each have and could hold their own against multiple positions if Smith is converting at a high clip. With Michigan typically switching on everything, this lineup (or some rendition of it) likely makes the most sense to not sacrifice offensive performance.
No matter how the Wolverines decide to go at him, Smith poses the biggest individual threat Michigan has seen this year. And no matter how well he’s playing, Purdue head coach Matt Painter is going to continue to feed his offense through his best player. After his struggles during the Boilermakers’ trio of losses, Painter said as much, “He’s so good and he puts us in such good positions… he’s our guy. We’re coming back to him.”
