Spartans' Bitter Rival Looks Shaky, Blown Out by Purdue

The Michigan State Spartans' bitter rival just suffered an embarrassing road loss as it had its doors blown off by the Purdue Boilermakers on Friday night.

Michigan head coach Dusty May reacts to a play against Northwestern during the overtime at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025. | Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The No. 8 Michigan State Spartans' (17-2, 8-0) hated rival, No. 21 Michigan Wolverines (14-5, 6-2) were just taken out back and given a pummeling on Friday night in a 91-64 thumping by the No. 11 Purdue Boilermakers (16-5, 8-2) on Friday. Things are starting to look shaky for the Wolverines of late.

Michigan has now lost two of its last three games after being named as the projected Big Ten regular season champions and a dark horse pick for the Final Four. The Wolverines fell on the road to a Minnesota Gophers team that was 0-6 in conference, followed by an embarrassing loss to Purdue. In between that, they barely scraped by in an overtime victory against Northwestern at home.

After an extremely impressive start to the season shooting the ball, the Wolverines have come back down to earth a bit. They shot a dreadful 37% from the field and made just six of 29 3-point attempts. Not to mention the 22 turnovers that led to 29 Boilermaker points.

They allowed Purdue junior guard Braden Smith to have his way with their defense, scoring a game-high 24 points on 10-17 shooting. Junior guard Fletcher Loyer, younger brother of former Spartan guard Foster Loyer, had 18 points and finished 5-10 from three-point range for the Boilermakers.

Michigan coach Dusty May spoke postgame and blatantly expressed that his program is not where it needs to be right now. The Wolverines have looked like a completely different team over the past week in the worst way, posting their lowest point total of the season with 64 points.

"Especially with the traditional Big Ten teams, we haven't risen to the challenge from a physicality standpoint and we're not there as a program quite yet," May said following the brutal loss. "But we're going to be obsessed with getting to the point we need to, where we match the level of intensity and physicality in these games."

Michigan State fans cannot wait for the matchups between their beloved Spartans and the in-state rival, with the first one coming Feb. 21 at home. Both teams will conclude the regular season together on March 9, with potentially a great deal on the line as both teams are competing for the top spot in the Big Ten.

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