Purdue vs. Michigan: Game Preview | The circus comes to town

Michigan (7-11) has lost six of its last seven games. Its road doesn't get any easier as it has to go to Mackey Arena to the take on a #2 Purdue (17-2) that's responded to its second loss of the season by winning three straight Big Ten games by double-figures, including to road game against Iowa and Indiana.

It will now get to come back home where its not lost all season.

While everything appears to be going the wrong direction for Juwan Howard and company, Purdue is now just one game back in the Big Ten and has the country's best resume as it heads into its final third of the season.

Zach Edey is on a three game streak of 30 points and 10 rebounds, and Purdue's defense has taken a step up in the last three games as Purdue climbs towards the top-10 again in defensive efficiency.

At the other end, Howard's best player will miss out because this is a road game and the former Wolverine player has seemingly approached the brink of his time as Michigan's head basketball coach.

In other words, a desperate but talent deprived Wolverines team will head into Mackey Arena needing a win to salvage anything out of its season.

In one of the most bizarre twists to this season, Dug McDaniel will continue to serve his road game suspension and he won't be available for Michigan's game at Purdue. This is a six game suspension for academic reasons that has McDaniel not playing road games for the Wolverines. McDaniel is Michigan's best player without contention. He's a leading scorer at over 17 a game and the team's point guard and best play maker.

Michigan has played just one game this season without McDaniel at Maryland.

Michigan lost that game 64-57, and worked through its big men, with Olivier Nkamhoua scoring 18 points and Terrance Williams scoring 10. But Michigan turned the ball over 11 times to just 10 assists and made only 5 three-pointers.

Without McDaniel, Michigan's is lacking in production and spacing. It will struggle against a Purdue team backed behind a frenzied Mackey crowd and playing its best defense of the season.

But assistant coach Paul Lusk wasn't dismissing Michigan as a threat as he filled in for head coach Matt Painter during the media portion before practice on Tuesday.

"They still have good players," Lusk said. "Good talent. And I think any night in this league you've gotta be ready to play."

That will be Purdue's challenge - to get up for a game they should dominate on paper.

If the only road game suspension wasn't strange enough, Juwan Howard's program has been taken on a ride of a lot of headlines on and off the court.

Howard got into an altercation with a long-time strength coach while his son was rehabbing an injury in the weight room. The strength coach has not returned to the school, to my knowledge, and the situation is one of a few altercations where Howard's inability to not escalate a situation shined a poor light on his temperament as a coach.

Howard of course has gotten into two physical altercations with coaches in game or after in the hand shake line.

Then there was the matter of Juwan Howard stepping aside to allow his assistant coach to head coach the team at the Palestra because Phil Martelli is from the area. To make it more bizarre, Martelli has coached quite a few games already for Michigan throughout Howard's tenure whether it be to fill in for Howard while Howard was suspended, or the health scare that kept Howard sidelined for the beginning part of this season.

Kaufman-Renn went down in a scary moment at the Iowa game. The sophomore guard was pulled back while he went up for a rebound and came down, bending his foot, and twisting his leg against Iowa. He was helped back to the locker room and didn't return to the game. But Kaufman-Renn was back at practice today and is expected to play tomorrow.

Nkamhoua is one part back to the basket bully, one part stretch four. He should be the focus of Michigan's offense. With Kaufman-Renn dealing with a new ankle injury, Mason Gillis giving up a little size to Nkamhoua, it could be a good game for Nkamhoua to use his all-around offensive game to get some points up in Mackey Arena.

Michigan is still fresh into living without McDaniel and it'll need to figure out how it operates as a team without its main play maker.

Princeton transfer who is still recovering from a devastating knee injury last season, Jaelin Llewellyn, will try to feel the role as lead guard for Michigan, but he's only just getting back into action. Expect Llewellyn and the Michigan offense to try and run Nkamhoua into the post and use him to spread out the defense in the corner with his shot making.

But the truth is, on paper, Michigan's best hope is to just keep this one respectable. While it's faired decently in the first half of games recently, it's collapsed in the second half and its record shows a team that hasn't had it for most the season. It goes into one of college basketball's best atmosphere's against one of college's best teams.

Michigan is another team that falls into the category of big deprived. It has no seven footers and will rely on Tarris Reed to try and body up with Edey. That really hasn't worked for anyone.

This could be one that's over early in Mackey despite the 9 pm tip-off time.