Purdue, IU Suffer in Different Ways

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. ­ -- The natural order here is that Indiana basketball has a God complex and Purdue has an inferiority complex. That's the starting point when these schools play each other, as they did Wednesday night.

Purdue crushed Indiana, as everyone does. This one was 74-55, but winning and losing wasn't as neat and orderly as it sounds. Indiana is a shambles of a program, and Purdue has had everything lined up perfectly to finally win the national championship, including the Final Four in its home state.

This has been the perfect year for this Charlie Brown of a program. And then, someone pulled the football away again. Robbie Hummel, the team's best player, heart and soul, glue, ­ you name it -- blew out his knee a few days ago. He tore his ACL and is out for the year. Last year, he cracked his vertebrae when Purdue was looking good.

Now, Purdue is not going to get a No. 1 seed, not going to reach the Final Four. Deep down, everyone here knows it, though they say things like senior tough guy Chris Kramer said Wednesday night about why he chose to come to Purdue out of high school when the team was awful.

"I could see the light at the end," he said.

He can take pride in helping Purdue get back to its ceiling. But flick, the light is off. The gods are heartless.

Meanwhile, Indiana fans are blind to their reality, already angry with head coach Tom Crean, who is in the second year of rebuilding a program that had a bomb drop on it. So Crean keeps trying to slap some sense into Indiana fans, with cold, blunt assessments.

"We're a soft basketball team," he said. "I don't have any other way to put it."

He tried anyway: "Coaches, players, managers. ... Down the road, the mental toughness you learn from dealing with what we're dealing with will help you in life."

So here we are, and Indiana is angry because it expects to win, and Purdue is trying to talk itself into something, even though it knows it is going to lose. Which one is the winner here?

I'm not sure, but my sympathies go with Purdue, as we all like a good underdog story.

Indiana is getting what it deserves.

Maybe I'd better start with Indiana, then. Crean doesn't deserve this, but he knew what he was facing and made sure he was paid for it. He required an eight-year contract just to be willing to wade shoulder-deep in IU hoops. Then, seeing the place for only a few months, he somehow managed a two-year extension out of the place.

Indiana players don't deserve this either, and nothing upsets the natural order more than freshman Jordan Hulls, Mr. Basketball in the state of Indiana last year. His high school team in Bloomington went undefeated. You just know he spent his life dreaming of playing for the Hoosiers, as three-quarters of the state does.

Now that he's here, his dream team stinks.

This is punishment to Indiana Nation for that God complex. Remember, before Crean, Indiana hired Kelvin Sampson, who had been busted as a recruiting cheat before and had a terrible graduation rate.

But even if it was by cheating, Sampson did manage to land great recruits. And that's what Indiana wanted. During his introductory press conference, which was open to the public, any time journalists asked about Sampson's past troubles, the boos came down.

So IU fans supported a cheater. And, well, you know what he did. Cheated again. He was run out, and already his players are almost all gone. Some were kicked out, some ran out, some flunked out.

Lesson learned? No. Indiana fans are upset with Crean (pictured right) for being 9-20, when they should be pointing fingers at themselves.

"There is nothing about this situation," he said, "that has any normalcy to it."

Crean hasn't been able to sell this mess to top recruits, and now is looking forward to the prospects in the 2011 and 2012 classes for hope.

Got that IU fans? Your decision to accept Sampson has given IU a new motto:

Wait till 2012.

Purdue has bypassed Indiana, but needs a national title to solidify a spot with the Hoosiers.

It might have happened. But Hummel got hurt in the Minnesota game. When he returned to the locker room at halftime, knowing he would be out for the year, "you could see the look on our guys' faces and the look on the coaches' faces," Boilermakers head coach Matt Painter said.

Their first full game without Hummel was a loss to Michigan State. So this was going to be a classic story, but ended a Purdue rerun.

Painter has rebuilt the place since taking over for Gene Keady. A few top players mixed with big parts all came together in belief, targeting this year.

"Our juniors and our seniors all committed to us," Painter said, "when we were in last place."

Hummel is a symbol of Purdue, working hard, making the most of himself, and apparently jinxed. On Wednesday, he sat on the bench in a white shirt, tie and black pants.

The school has strangely kept Hummel from talking publicly, as if a 20-year old man who hurts his knee needs to be protected from the media. So he hasn't had a chance to tell the fans how he feels. And that just leaves things hanging there for the fans.

Painter and his senior players were mushy Wednesday, talking about the journey and the shot they still have to finish tied for the Big Ten title this weekend.

"Right now," he said, "We just have to really not make excuses or use a crutch for Rob being out. We have to man up."

They'll do it. From there, though? Well, you can hope.

But in this case, the losers can't see their reality. The winners, unfortunately, know theirs all too well.

Email me at gregcouch09@aol.com