Just three and a half minutes into its road game at Mackey Arena, it was evident that Michigan men’s basketball was in big-time trouble.

After blowing a 16-point lead in their last outing against Ohio State, No. 11 Purdue (16-5, 8-2) came into their home building with murderous intent, and the Wolverines were their victims. The Boilermakers jumped to a 13-2 lead to start the game and never looked back, delivering a 91-64 beatdown of No. 21 Michigan (14-5, 6-2) on Friday night.

Michigan never had time to settle into this one, falling behind by as many as 29 points in the first half, and never drawing closer than 20 the rest of the way. Here are four takeaways from an embarrassing performance from the Wolverines…

The Wolverines got off to a very strong start this season, but have played their worst basketball of the year over their past three games. Michigan suffered an inexcusable loss to last-place Minnesota, and needed overtime to survive at home against Northwestern.

Tonight, the Wolverines got a glimpse of what a real title contender looked like. Purdue played with all the intensity and energy of a pissed off squad that had just let a game get away from them the last time out. Michigan was just simply the team in the way of their buzzsaw.

The Wolverines fall to third place in the Big Ten standings, and while they remain in striking distance of winning a conference title, this team has looked more like a pretender than a contender in its recent outings. We’ll see if this blowout loss was the wake-up call that Michigan needed, or if its the beginning of the end of their Big Ten contention.

As mentioned in the opening, Purdue brought an intensity into this game that Michigan has not seen all year, and the Wolverines chronic turnover issues were just added fuel to that fire.

Michigan had a season-worst 22 turnovers tonight, which led to 29 points for the Boilermakers. Just an embarrassing lack of composure and care for the Wolverines tonight. At some point, somebody on this team has to say enough is enough.

Purdue deserves a ton of credit for the level of effort it played with defensively, but Michigan’s total carelessness with the basketball all season long has been unacceptable. It’s the No. 1 problem for this team, and there’s nothing to suggest it’ll get fixed at this point.

We’re now midway through the season, and Dusty May and his staff have found no solutions in limiting Michigan’s turnovers. Entering today’s game, the Wolverines’ 14.6 turnovers per game rank 332nd out of 355 Division I programs. That number will only go up, and that ranking down, after this pathetic performance.

Not only will that keep Michigan from competing for a Big Ten title if it continues, but it’s a recipe for an early exit in the NCAA Tournament unless it gets addressed.

Purdue might as well have been playing against air with how fluid the Boilermakers’ offense looked against a shell-shocked Michigan defense. Purdue converted 11 of their first 14 shot attempts to jump ahead 25-9 in the first seven minutes.

While the Boilermakers weren’t able to maintain that ridiculous level of efficiency throughout the night, they still managed to put on a clinic. Purdue finished the game shooting 55% from the floor and 38% from the 3-point line.

Michigan has played well defensively at times this season, but has not played with the consistent effort and grit it takes to be an elite team on that end of the floor. Tonight, the Wolverines’ giveaways offensively didn’t even give them much of a chance to show any resistence on the defensive end.

Tre Donaldson, Danny Wolf and Vlad Goldin — those are the leaders of this Michigan team, and they easily had their worst collective performance of the season in this one.

Donaldson had a game-high six turnovers, while Goldin and Wolf each added four giveaways each. It was easily the worst game of the year for Wolf, who finished with just four points on an abysmal 1-of-7 shooting, including 0-for-5 from 3-point range. Just a complete no-show from the 7-foot senior.

Goldin had 14 points to lead the Wolverines, and added six rebounds. Donaldson had 11 points and four rebounds, with just one assist. Simply not good enough.

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