Michigan Misses Manny Harris in 69-59 Loss to Purdue

By Sean · Saturday, January 23, 2010 · 6:34 PM |  Share | Leave a Comment 

Manny Harris’ absence from today’s game at Purdue showed just how much he means to this team.  Michigan looked lost up until the later stages of the game on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, allowing Purdue to do basically whatever it wanted en route to a 69-59 win over the Wolverines.  Purdue led by as many as 27 points in the second half before Michigan finally started to do something positive and went on a run to cut the lead down to 10 points by game’s end.  Michigan had a couple chances to really make the finish of this game interesting, but it failed to capitalize on some Purdue turnovers and miscues.  Just like earlier in the game, Michigan either turned the ball over right back to Purdue or missed a layup or open look from behind the arc, allowing Purdue to stop the bleeding and ultimately win 69-59.

DeShawn Sims did everything for Michigan for most of the first half.  In fact, nobody on Michigan outside of Sims even managed to score until nearly 13 minutes into the game.  The lack of scoring outside of Sims and some really awful defense allowed Purdue to start to pull away and take a 16-point lead into halftime.  In the second half, the Boilermakers picked up where they left off and went on a big run during the first 8 minutes or so of play.  The run culminated in Purdue taking a 27-point lead, which was the biggest deficit Michigan faced during this game.  The Wolverines followed Purdue’s run with one of their own and started to cut down the lead little by little.  Michigan unfortunately just ran out of time and couldn’t get the deficit down to single digits, but at least the team put up a fight after playing dead for the first 30 minutes of the game.

Sims’ hot start only led to him scoring 21 points, but that was enough to lead the team.  Zack Novak ended up with 16 points thanks in part to 4 three-pointers.  After that Michigan got 7 points from Laval Lucas-Perry, 6 from Darius Morris, 4 from Matt Vogrich, 3 from Anthony Wright, and 2 from Stu Douglass.  Morris and Douglass each had 4 turnovers, adding to Michigan’s offensive struggles.  Zack Gibson, Corey Person, and Josh Bartelstein also got playing time and scored 0 points, though Person and Bartelstein came in only for the last minute of the game.

Next up for Michigan is a game with arch-rival Michigan State, which is the best team in the Big Ten.  All I can say is that if Michigan wants to win, Manny Harris better play.  I’m all for teaching lessons, especially if Harris did something unsportsmanlike during practice, but the season will be on the line on Tuesday.  If Michigan even wants to dream about the NCAA tournament, it has to beat the Spartans.  Tip off is set for 7 p.m. on ESPN.