Michigan Wolverines vs Purdue Boilermakers Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 02/17/26

After a dominant home win over UCLA on Saturday, the Michigan Wolverines are 24-1 and in the middle of another 10-game winning streak. They will look to push it to 11 when they travel to West Lafayette to play the Purdue Boilermakers on Tuesday night, who have won 4 in a row after a 3-game skid at the end of January. Moreover, only 2 of Purdue’s last 8 games have been at Mackey Arena, so expect a rambunctious crowd when the #1 team in the country comes to town. That being said, Purdue has shown some mortality at home this year, dropping games to Iowa State and Illinois – arguably the 2 best defenses on their schedule to this point – which is notable ahead of this matchup considering Michigan has the best defense in the country.

Not only is Michigan elite defensively, but the Wolverines have incredible length in the front court, making them an absolute nightmare to defend around the basket. In an attempt to negate action at the rim, Purdue deploys a defensive system that involves a ton of hedging and other help-related actions, which has worked well considering the Boilermakers yield a shot at the rim less than 24% of the time (97th percentile). However, when opponents manage to get to the rim, there is very little resistance from Purdue. The Boilers allow opponents to shoot 64% at the rim (36th percentile), and there isn’t a ton of shot-blocking prowess on this team outside of Oscar Cluff, which isn’t ideal against a Michigan front court that makes almost 72% of their attempts at the rim (97th percentile) and 53% of their paint attempts (99th percentile). 

When Purdue has the ball, Braden Smith will orchestrate the offense through a myriad of ball screens and buddy-ball actions, and the Boilermakers will operate heavily through the mid-range. However, Michigan, being the top-rated defense that they are, will have an answer for all of those actions. Per Hoop-Explorer, the Wolverines are elite defensively in the mid-range, against post-ups and in ball screens, while they also shut down drive-and-kick actions with their elite perimeter length and disciplined closeouts. Simply put, I expect it to be difficult for Cluff and Trey Kaufman-Renn to find consistent offensive success against this Michigan front court, as Yaxel Lendeborg, Aday Mara and Morez Johnson Jr. are the 3 best defenders in the country per Evan Miya’s defensive performance rating. That will put extra pressure on Smith and Fletcher Loyer to pick up the slack out of the front court, which they’ve shown an ability to do. However, that approach may be too one-dimensional against this Michigan defense.

Michigan vs Purdue prediction: Wolverines -2.5 (-110) at the time of publishing. Playable to -3. 

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