Center Grove graduate Trayce Jackson-Davis has Indiana University flying as high as it has in several years.
Don’t look now, but two Saturdays in February might divide this state in a most pronounced manner.
Indiana vs. Purdue.
I don’t need to say more — but, of course, I will.
Barring a complete collapse by one or both of the men’s basketball teams in the weeks ahead, the decibel level inside IU’s Assembly Hall on Feb. 4 should run the risk of reaching paint-peeling proportions.
The same can be said for the rematch, a Feb. 25 game at acoustically imposing Mackey Arena.
Earplugs? Yeah, you’ll need them.
Twice.
In both cases, having the Hoosiers and Boilers ranked it the top 10 nationally the way they were earlier this season would be wonderful.
It shines the national spotlight on the Big Ten Conference and, more importantly, our state, and what a bitter college hoops rivalry looks like.
North Carolina vs. Duke … it’s in the conversation. Beyond that, don’t attempt to insult me or any other lifelong Indiana resident by implying Texas-Texas Tech, Michigan-Michigan State, Syracuse-Georgetown, Kentucky-Tennessee or UCLA-Arizona are even in the same league.
They’re not.
Long before the advent of social media and cell phone cameras, Indiana-Purdue was as heated as the areas beneath the collars of coaches Bob Knight and Gene Keady.
It’s often discussed how those games between the 1980-81 and 1999-2000 seasons represent the best — and, perhaps, worst — the series can conjure up.
Knight somehow mistaking his chair for a rock and attempting to skip it across the Assembly Hall hardwood in front of startled Purdue guard Steve Reid in 1985. The IU win in Bloomington two years later in which the teams were both ranked in the top 10 (tied at No. 4, as it turned out); Keady’s club exacting revenge in Mackey 26 days later.
Chad Austin’s consecutive road game-winners for the Boilermakers in 1996 and 1997, and so, so many more.
Then there were coaches themselves.
Knight interviewing a donkey wearing a Purdue cap on his Sunday TV show following an especially physical IU-Purdue game a day earlier in 1981. I grew up a Purdue fan, but I still laugh at this one; how Knight and the show’s host, the late Chuck Marlowe, kept straight faces throughout remains a mystery.
The General rolling his red sweater up to expose his paunch to the delight/disdain of Purdue fans; Keady’s combover, which mysteriously seemed to darken every season to the point where it appeared he owned stock in a company manufacturing shoe polish.
Mike Woodson and Matt Painter won’t offer up such theatrics, which is fine. It keeps the attention on the play itself.
Now picture this scenario …
The Boilermakers, ranked the No. 1 the past three weeks, win their next 11 games (starting today at home against Florida A&M), roll into Assembly Hall rocking 23-0 swagger and trot onto the hardwood and into the teeth of a sea of verbal venom.
No need to write a pregame pep talk for Indiana coach Woodson. It’s written.
How likely is this?
I’m guessing not very.
Purdue has road games against Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan State, Minnesota and Michigan between now and then. This span also includes home dates with Rutgers — which knocked the Boilers from their first-ever No. 1 ranking last season — along with Maryland, MSU and Penn State.
Once upon a time, the 1975-76 Hoosiers, arguably the greatest men’s college basketball team ever, played at Purdue sporting a 21-0 mark. Indiana got out of town with a 74-71 win, then took care of business the rest of the way, dribbling straight into the record books.
Again, the reversal of this, cool is it would be, isn’t likely. Not that records ever matter when Indiana plays Purdue.
Mike Beas is a sportswriter for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].
