'This Is Us': Indiana Basketball Is Still Alive. Darian DeVries Woke It Up vs Purdue

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Anticipation built. Players left their huddle after one final word of pre-game instruction and took their spot on Branch McCracken Court. Fans rose to their feet.

That included the giant amongst them all. Indiana football head coach Curt Cignetti stood in front of his courtside seat on Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall’s east side, awaiting the opening tip-off. After a few moments, he glanced down and checked his watch. It wasn’t just time for tip-off.

It was time for Indiana basketball to get its first marquee win this season. It was time for Darian DeVries, Cignetti’s coaching colleague, to prove himself as the right leader for Indiana's most iconic program. It was time, perhaps most importantly, to announce the Hoosiers’ basketball revival — and proof of life alongside the football national champions.

Two hours later, a few chairs down from Cignetti’s seat, there were hand shakes and chest bumps, there were emphatic yells and arm swings, and there was a scene showing the magnitude of Indiana’s feat. On other side of the hardwood, there was a scoreboard that brought it all together.

Indiana 72, Purdue 67.

The Hoosiers (14–7, 5–5 Big Ten) survived a late push give the No. 12 Boilermakers (17–4, 7–3 Big Ten) their third consecutive loss Tuesday night at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington.

Indiana beat its archrival. Indiana won its first Quadrant 1 game under DeVries. And on a night where Cignetti and several Indiana football players were honored for their national championship, DeVries and the Hoosiers gave this season’s loudest, most energized crowd reason to keep coming back, to keep believing and to keep caring about basketball.

“That's what this place is,” DeVries said postgame. “We love our hoops. And having that place full and rocking, that's a huge advantage for us as we continue to move forward. There's a lot of tough places to play in the Big Ten, but we want this to be the loudest, toughest place there is.

“Not only in the Big Ten but in the country, because it does matter, and it does make a difference in games. That effort by the crowd tonight was impressive.”

After he’d navigated Indiana through a bumpy closing stretch — the Hoosiers missed the front end of a one-on-one on three consecutive tries and saw their 10-point lead with five minutes remaining dwindle to a 2-point edge with less than a minute-and-a-half left — and after he’d finished the postgame handshake line, DeVries went to Indiana’s student section.

There, the 50-year-old coach lifted both his arms and pointed his index fingers toward the crowd. It was, DeVries said, an emphatic expression of gratitude.

“This is us,” DeVries said. “This is our program. And it's our community, it's our students. I want them to feel their impact matters because it does. We want them to feel like they're a huge part of it and have an impact on what happens out there, because they do. And they brought it today.”

Indiana’s first meeting with Purdue this season carried all the ingredients for a special night. The Hoosiers organized a stripe out inside Assembly Hall, turning seats in one of the sport’s most historic venues into alternating columns of cream and crimson. Cignetti gave a brief pre-game address.

The rivalry aspect existed, too. Indiana has only one in-state scholarship player — freshman forward Trent Sisley — on its roster. But rivalries, DeVries said, are “what make college sports great” and “why everybody loves college sports.” Only two hours separate Bloomington and West Lafayette. The fanbases are passionate. The games are competitive.

Every win is big, DeVries said. But he quickly ditched the cliches and acknowledged this: Rivalry games always have an extra flare — especially, in DeVries’ case, in a season geared toward laying the groundwork.

Indiana has no returning scholarship players from last year. DeVries largely pieced together his roster and coaching staff in less than a month. He didn’t see much of Bloomington in his first two weeks on the job last spring.

But DeVries isn’t merely trying to survive the season. He’s trying to build a foundation. And on Tuesday night, he not only won a rivalry game, but his team may have won the Hoosiers’ fanbase, too.

“I think it's huge,” senior guard Conor Enright said postgame, “because the crowd feeds off how we play. I think the last couple of weeks, we've been starting to play more for each other and playing hard together. So, obviously, beating a rival like Purdue is big for us.”

Enright gave the crowd one of its final exclamation points.

Indiana, which led by as many as 14 points midway through the second half, nearly lost control of the win it worked so hard to seize. After Purdue senior guard Braden Smith made a layup to trim the Boilermakers’ deficit to 65–63 with 88 seconds remaining, nervous energy filled the air in Assembly Hall.

Then, Enright buried a 3-pointer from the left wing. He made only one shot through the first 38-and-a-half minutes of Tuesday night’s game. Then, he made one that won’t soon leave the minds of Indiana fans.

But Enright’s shot, the Hoosiers’ win and the palpable juice within Assembly Hall carries significance beyond Tuesday night and beyond adding a significant win to an NCAA Tournament resume.

Basketball took a backseat during a football run that not only took over the state, but the nation. Cignetti spearheaded arguably the greatest turnaround in sports history. A basketball-crazed town became all-consumed by football.

Tuesday night offered a reminder the two sports aren’t mutually exclusive. Indiana’s basketball program is still alive. This city and this school still cares about basketball, which is forever ingrained within this state’s fabric.

Apathy hasn’t set in.

Indiana had a chance Tuesday to seize momentum and bolster belief in the giant DeVries hopes to build. The Hoosiers capitalized. Fans cheered so loud, so passionately, for 40 minutes that junior guard Nick Dorn said he could barely hear. DeVries said Indiana’s crowd never took a possession off.

“There's some good ones out there, but this is really, really special when it's like that,” DeVries said. “And tonight was as good as it gets in college basketball.”

Boisterous environments are synonymous to Indiana basketball. For years, the Hoosiers were incredibly difficult to beat at home because of the unrelenting passion resting within the 17,000-plus seats inside Assembly Hall.

Tuesday night showed the beast still exists. It’s DeVries’ job to turn this night, with that passion and those flashes, into consistency. It’s DeVries’ job to bring Indiana basketball back to what it once was.

If nothing else, DeVries saw his Hoosier dream — one where his team beats a top 15 foe and archrival, where the crowd noise is deafening, where he gets to point into the student section with a heart full of gratitude — come to life Tuesday.

“The biggest key was that crowd out there,” DeVries said. “That's what makes this place so special. When you've got a home court like we have, that's a big advantage. And when that place is loud and rockin' like that, that's a big, big deal for us.”