Retro ball

So, how ugly was it?

It was so ugly that, if it were a face, it would look like someone set it on fire and put it out with a radial tire.

It was so ugly you'd have to hang a porkchop around its neck to get the dog to play with it.

It was so ugly it could stop a clock. So ugly it could give Freddy Krueger nightmares. So ugly people would look at it and say, "OK, you can take off the mask now."

In other words ... it was ugly, Indiana and Purdue getting it on again in Assembly Hall last night. Ugly cubed.

Even the winning shot -- Matt Haarms awkwardly slapping Carsen Edwards' miss off the backboard and in with fewer than four seconds left -- was inelegant. Haarms swat-in gave Purdue a 48-46 victory. It was the lowest scoring IU-Purdue game since 1950, when there was no shot clock, no 3-point line, and the two-handed set shot was still a thing. They should have played it with peach baskets -- a notion of which James Naismith surely would have approved while rewriting his famous quote about basketball in Indiana.

"Basketball really had its origin in Indiana, which remains the center of the sport," Naismith once said.

The amended version: "Basketball really had its origin in Indiana, which remai-- good God, would somebody please make a shot?"

Not on this night. On the one hand, Purdue shot 31.7 percent (19-of-60), including a hideous 6-of-30 from the 3-point line. On the other hand, Indiana shot 27.3 percent (15-of-55), including an equally disfigured 5-of-25 from the arc.

Together, the two teams combined for 27 turnovers and just 14 assists.

So, yeah, ugly. Even the Assembly Hall student section was ugly, subjecting Haarms, the Amsterdam Hairdo, to a profane chant that had everyone clutching their pearls who've forgotten what that same student section used to chant at Brian Cardinal. And how the Purdue student section used to serenade Bob Knight in Mackey Arena.

Hey, it's Purdue. It's IU. Stuff happens.

And what's the takeaway from this latest round?

Well, Indiana can take away the fact that it played awful again but at least tried this time, a comforting thought that only illuminated just how low the expectations have fallen for this group of Hoosiers. They're now 13-13 and have lost 11 of their last 12 games, which means the talking heads might finally relinquish their ludicrous narrative about IU clinging to fading NCAA Tournament hopes.

Um, no. Those hopes faded to black two games ago, when they lost in Assembly Hall to Ohio State. Da Tournament has been out of their reach for a week. The only fading hopes they're clinging to now involve the NIT.

And Purdue?

Still chugging along. The Boilermakers surely didn't inspire anyone's confidence with that defacement last night, but the fact remains they survived and advanced. That makes 10 wins in their last 11 games, five straight wins over Indiana and a halfway decent seed in the Dance in their immediate future.

An ugly win is still a win, after all. The takeaway of takeaways from last night.