Michigan's highly unique frontcourt dynamics will challenge Purdue Friday night

For years now, Purdue has been overwhelming opponents with its raw size. A lot more has gone into it, but the shock-and-awe quotient associated with the Boilermakers’ parade of massive big men has been a big deal.

This year is different. Purdue is small by past standards, and now Michigan is the team everyone’s looking up at, literally, the very Wolverine team that visits Mackey Arena Friday night in a pivotal game in the Big Ten race.

In Year 1 in Ann Arbor, Dusty May has built a contender with size, with transfers Vladislav Goldin and Danny Wolf, 7-foot-1, 250 pounds and 7-foot, 250, respectively. They are gigantic, but also unique in ways that transcend size, the foundation of a Wolverine team averaging 83 points per game in Big Ten play.

Wolf is a ball-handler, a player who shoots 37 percent from three and averages 3.9 assists per game, a highly uncommon complement to Goldin’s scoring skill and physical strength. Goldin’s averaging a league-best 22.7 points through Michigan’s first seven Big Ten games. Largely because of its size, Michigan is third nationally for the whole season in both effective field goal percentage and two-point shooting percentage.

Incredibly, Wolf operates as a pick-and-roll ball-handler on a significant chunk of his touches, and Michigan averages a solid .93 points per possession on those touches, per Synergy Sports.

“I haven’t seen anything like that, and I don’t think a lot of people have,” Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn said of Michigan’s 14-foot pick-and-roll tandem. “I think that’s why they’re so effective at what they do. It’s going to be a challenge. It’ll be unique, but I think we’re up to it.”

He and Caleb Furst will be most responsible for not only dealing with the action but also accounting for the two big men on the glass. That’s where Purdue may stack up. It doesn’t have 7-footers out there, but it does have two bigger, more interchangeable forwards at its 4 and 5 positions, and a defensive structure heavily reliant on back-end help from guards.

“You’ve got to be able to handle them driving it and handle them passing it,” Coach Matt Painter said. “That’s the key to keeping them out of the paint. (Wolf) does a really great great job spinning off contact, so you have to be set. He forces the contact in his drives and how he plays. He’s a good player, man. He puts you in binds, and that’s what good players do.”

Wolf is enormously tall and long but a natural ball-handler with a highly uncommon flexibility that allows him to finish difficult shots at the rim.

Goldin isn’t the fastest or most explosive roll man, but he’s a really physical screener and more than capable of catching and finishing or popping threes from the top of the arc. He’s made nine threes this season.

But it’s Wolf who is the real unicorn here.

What he does for Michigan is pure guard play as a 7-footer.

He’ll bring the ball up and move right into a transition ball screen, not unlike what Purdue would do with Braden Smith, as Wolf looks comfortable enough doing it to turn down the screen and just go.

That’s a big body to deal with around the basket.

As it would be with a guard, the step-back jumper has to be respected.

This is the most uncommon offensive dynamic Purdue has seen this season.

“It just comes down to sticking with our defensive principles, sticking with what we’re doing,” Furst said, “and just trying our best to shut them down.”