Less than a month ago, the Duke Blue Devils usurped the Michigan Wolverines as the No. 1 team in the country after defeating them in a head-to-head matchup.
With the 68-63 victory in hand, the Blue Devils rose to the top of the rankings and sent the Wolverines down a couple of spots. One of the biggest story lines from the winning performance was just how good Duke's defense was against Michigan.
Now, in Michigan's first loss since then, it looks like the Purdue Boilermakers (who just defeated the Wolverines in the Big Ten Championship game) took a page out of Duke's defensive book.
Boilermakes model defensive plan vs. Wolverines after Blue Devils
In the conference title game, the Boilermakers locked down the paint and forced the Wolverines to attempt 24 shots from three-point range. Michigan made seven of them, shooting just 29 percent from beyond the arc.
When the two teams met in February, the Blue Devils forced the Wolverines to take 25 shots from beyond the arc. Michigan only made six of those attempts, shooting just 24 percent from three-point range. Purdue basically copied and pasted that strategy into their game plan.
The stat lines are nearly identical and led to a similar result: the higher-ranked Wolverines suffered the upset loss. The moral of the story? Michigan has a fatal flaw, and it could spell ruin for the Wolverines in the NCAA Tournament.
Duke head coach Jon Scheyer not only figured out Michigan's defensive strategy, leading to the breakaway performance by the Blue Devils in the second half, but he also clearly had a plan in mind for how to minimize the Wolverines' offensive success.
Purdue head coach Matt Painter may have studied up on Scheyer's winning approach before the Boilermakers took the court on Sunday.