New Headline: Michigan Men's Basketball Sees Exciting Run to NBA Finals!

Michigan basketball had the opportunity to be the first team to have back-to-back Big Ten Tournament championships since, well, Michigan. But it would have to get past a surging Purdue team hellbent on avenging its February 17 loss at home to the maize and blue. The early going saw Purdue jump out to a 7-3 lead, but Nimari Burnett hit his second 3 of the game to pull closer.

The Boilermakers nursed a small lead, on the back of center Oscar Cluff, but a Yaxel Lendeborg 3 gave the Wolverines a 13-11 lead. Coming out of the under-16 media timeout, Purdue tied it up with a Trey Kaufmann-Renn layup. The score stayed there for a minute and a half before Kaufmann-Renn got another layup to give the Boilermakers the lead again.

The Wolverines hoisted three offline 3s to no avail, but Purdue could do nothing with it on the other end. A fourth missed 3 was thrown up by Will Tschetter, but the defense held tough, keeping it a 15-13 Boilermaker lead at the under-12 media timeout. Michigan was on a three-and-a-half-minute scoring drought, having gone 0-for-5 and only hitting one of the previous seven.

Morez Johnson Jr. tied the game on a putback, ending the nearly four-minute scoring drought. The Wolverines took the lead again on a Trey McKenney jumper, and now Purdue hadn't scored in three-plus minutes.