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Wolverines troubled in all areas of game

The game.

There may be a good reason why the Wolverines played so badly against Purdue -- collective food poisoning comes to mind -- but chances are, the only malady Michigan was suffering from was sprained determination.

"We were dominated in every phase of the game from start to finish," said Michigan coach Steve Fisher.

When that happens, winning is kind of tough.

Q. Which two Purdue players scored more than Michigan in the first half?

A) Chad Austin and Roy Hairston.

B) Austin and Justin Jennings.

C) Austin and Brandon Brantley.

The answer, of course, is D) All of the above. Well, Austin and Hairston actually tied the Wolverines, but hey, what's a point here or there when you're Purdue?

The final score read "Purdue 80, Michigan 59." It wasn't that close. It wasn't even close to that close. This game was a blowout from the start, and when that happens, statistics become misleading, if not meaningless. Example: Bullock scored 17 points, but was never a factor.

"I think we had some effort in areas, but the bottom line is we let them come out and push us around," Bullock said.

You needed to be a historian to remember the last time Michigan had a lead. It was with 14 minutes left in the first half, when the Wolverines were up 11-10. Then Purdue went on a little 33-12 run to end the half with a 44-22 lead.

Naturally, the Boilermakers were disappointed.

"We were unhappy as a staff that we gave up as many points as we did," said Purdue coach Gene Keady.

Yeah, well, that's something to work on.

Coming into the game, the Boilermakers weren't supposed to be a great offensive team. Last night, they didn't have to be. Michigan's defense was like a fresh batch of donuts -- soft and with plenty of holes.

At times in the first half, Michigan looked like it was blaming its nightmare on the referees. That's like Noah blaming the flood on the weatherman.

"We have to learn not to whine when it gets physical but just get physical right back," guard Louis Bullock said.

In truth, Michigan's problems could be broken down into four areas of disappointment -- guards, forwards, centers and coaches. When you lose by 21 at home, it's a total team effort.

Purdue is a good team. With 100 percent effort, the Wolverines still might not have won.

But it would have been nice to find out.

The Wolverines did start to crawl out of the hole in the second half, much as a caterpillar could crawl out of the Grand Canyon. But the caterpillar would probably need more than 20 minutes to do it. So would Michigan.

Wolverine fans had to play mind games, thinking "If we can cut it to 17 by the 10-minute mark ..." or "If we can cut it to 14 by the four-minute mark ..." and eventually "If we can cut it to a dozen by Friday ..."

The Wolverines are a young team. But they aren't just young -- they're bad, too. At least, they were last night. They even admitted it.

"Purdue was very, very good and we were very, very bad," Fisher said. Then he added one of his favorite phrases: "You're never quite as good as you're talked about or as bad as you're talked about."

His team is testing that theory. After the Indiana game, the Wolverines felt bad. Then they went to Iowa and played worse, which made them feel awful, which doesn't compare to how they felt after the disaster of last night.

Keady made a point of not overstating the game's importance.

"We're just happy to be going home again," he said.

Hey, Gene. If you were that anxious, you guys could have left at halftime.

You probably still would have won.

-- Michael Rosenberg can be reached over e-mail at mcr@umich.edu.