Hoosier (and more) rising

 OK. So now we know know, I guess.

Now what was promised in recruiting, and hinted at in wins over Whatsamattu U. and Measly Tech and the like, has come to fruition, and it was the students who figured it out first. They're the ones who camped out overnight in the rain and plunging temperatures to get into the Hall. They're the ones who knew, with this Indiana team on the national stage for the first time, that this Indiana team was going to send lordly North Carolina back to Chapel Hill in sandwich bags.

And so it came to pass, not to get all Biblical or anything.

Before a howling mob dressed like a Midwestern blizzard -- it was white-out night in the Hall -- the 10th-ranked Hoosiers snowed in a Tar Heels team that was ranked No. 1 a couple of weeks ago, and that still has major components from the team that reached the national championship game in April. The final was 77-65. and it wasn't that close.

The Hoosiers won with marquee nights from Trace Jackson-Davis (21 points, 10 rebounds, four assists, four blocks), Xavier Johnson (20 points, eight rebounds, four assists), Jalen Hood-Schifino (14 points, six boards, two assists and a steal) and Trey Galloway (11 points, three rebounds, two assists and a steal). They won with floor burns and stubbornness on the defensive end, holding Carolina to 34 percent shooting and 5-of-18 from the 3-point arc. 

Indiana teams have been ranked in the top ten before in the long years since Saint Bob the Knight, but somehow it always felt like a con when they were. This feels different, and not just because Mike Woodson has brought back gumption and pride to a program that has too often played like it was Just Another Basketball Program in the last two decades (because too often it was). This feels different because it feels legit.

And do you know the best part?

That a couple of hours north in West Lafayette, there's another legit basketball team. It wears black-and-gold and it doesn't like Indiana at all.

Last week that basketball team, your Purdue Boilermakers, simply dismantled two snobbish elites (Gonzaga and Duke) and another perennially robust basketball school (West Virginia), and last night they went down to Tallahassee and beat Florida State by 10. Zach Edey (25 points, eight boards) did more Zach Edey things. Freshman point guard Braden Smith (13 points, nine rebounds, seven assists) had another For God's Sake Why Didn't We Recruit This Kid night. And the Boilers went to 7-0 on the season, same as Indiana.

Purdue is No. 5 in the latest ESPN poll. Indiana, as noted, is 10th. It's the first time both schools have been ranked in the top ten since 1998.

Knight was still at IU then. Gene Keady was still at Purdue. So, you know, the glory days, basically.

Now?

Now tell me those days aren't back. And rejoice when you can't.

Oh, and one other thing.

Circle February 4 on your calendar. 

That's when Purdue heads south to Bloomington to play IU. And a rivalry becomes a Rivalry again.