Rivalry rising

 You saw this coming from 90-some hours away, and from three states away. Remember? Tuesday night in College Park, Md.?

Your Indiana Hoosiers turned turtle that night against the Maryland Terrapins.

The final was Terps 66, Indiana 55.

Everything the Hoosiers didn't do that night told you what they were going to do come Saturday.

They didn't shoot, missing 35 of their 56 shots (37.5 percent) and eight of 11 from the 3-point arc. They didn't defend, forcing Maryland to turn it over just five times. The never led after falling behind by eight at halftime, and, besides Trayce Jackson-Davis (20 points, 18 boards) and Race Thompson (11 and four). no one else did much of anything.

You knew right then what No. 1 Purdue was in for Saturday.

You knew because everything about Tuesday in College Park screamed this was an Indiana team looking ahead to the next stop, and that there would be an almighty reckoning when it got there.  And then Saturday came -- and, sure as sunrise, here came a wholly different Indiana, tearing at its rival's lofty status while Assembly Hall bellowed and rocked and became Assembly Hell again.

All of it shook the previously unshakeable Boilers, who were 7-0 on the road before Saturday. They kicked the basketball away an astounding seven times in the first eight minutes as Indiana rampaged to a 21-10 lead and a 50-35 halftime lead. 

The Purdues got it down to a single point in the second half, because they're the Purdues and there's no give-up in 'em. But Jalen Hood-Schifino, cool as early spring, took to the tin for a crucial layup with 25 seconds to play, and not long after here came the red wave, making the floor disappear beneath a sea of slap-happy humans.

"Aw, how cute, they're storming the court like a little brother should after beating big brother," all the Boilerheads said, presumably.

"Hey, we beat the No. 1 team in the nation for the first time in a decade, and it was Purdue besides. So, hell, yes, we're storming the court," the slap-happy humans presumably replied.

And, sure, it's a cliche anymore, storming the court, but the cliche says if you're ranked No. 21 and you beat No. 1, it's not just appropriate but practically required. Indiana did it with the best half of basketball it's played in recent memory, and it did it by displaying a grit too long missing when Purdue came after the Hoosiers in the skinny minutes.

In the end, Indiana couldn't stop the unstoppable one, Zach Edey, who went for 33 points and 18 rebounds for Purdue and scored 18 of his total in the second half. But TJD dropped 25 points, seven rebounds and five blocks on the Purdues, and Hood-Schifino (16 and two steals) and Trey Galloway (11 and three steals) rattled the Boilers' cages, and Purdue wound up turning it over 16 times against Indiana's pressure.

And lost, 79-74, for only the second time this season.

Lost to Indiana, which hung its sixth W in its last seven games.

Lost to Assembly Hell -- even the players said so -- as the floor disappeared and this rivalry became everything it deserves to be but hasn't been for a very long time.

Twenty days from now, they meet again in Mackey.

And now an entire state is looking ahead.