After coming off a statement win against North Carolina on Wednesday, the Michigan Basketball tTeam starts conference play up against the Purdue Boilermakers on Saturday.
One of the matchups to watch in the game will be when Michigan Xavier Simpson matches up with Purdue’s Carsen Edwards and head coach John Beilein says it will be a good matchup. “They are both winners.,” Beilein said. “Zavier is going to see a lot of great point guards this year but Carsen is a different point guard with 25 points a game, and he gets to the foul line as well as also running great action for him as well.”
Michigan will start out with two conference games at the start of December and Beilein is ready for transition as the calendar changes to December. “It’s fine with me playing the two conference games in early December. We have always tried to get a good Saturday home game in December. The crowd and the students were tremendous against North Carolina so this is just a date you have filled. Don’t worry about this first weekend in December where you are going to be home or away and really helps the schedule in where you could be doing other things.” Beilein said
Another thing to watch is Xavier Simpson who was able to shutdown offenses this year effectively. “They know if the other team is going to get points. They know they are going to be tough to get. It’s like in football in having a great shutdown cornerback. in playing him man to man is fine and it allows you to concentrate on other people and Charles Matthews is the same way. We have not had a magnitude of individual defense by two guys. These guys could be on the all defensive team at the end of the year no question if they continue to do what they do.,” Beilein added.
Michigan takes on Purdue on Saturday at 3:30 on ESPN .