COLUMN: Say goodbye to Will Sheehey, Purdue

Purdue fans, meet senior forward Will Sheehey.

I guess I don’t need to introduce the two of you. You probably know him quite well. He’s the guy who has averaged 12 points a game in six career contests against Purdue.

And when IU (14-10, 4-7) travels to West Lafayette to play Purdue (14-10, 4-7) at 4 p.m. Saturday he’s the Hoosier who will reach an IU milestone.

Sheehey has scored 999 points in his career. His next bucket will make him the 47th Hoosier to reach the 1,000 points club. That will give IU one more member of the 1,000 points club than Purdue has.

Just another edge IU basketball has on Purdue basketball.

There’s no reason to mention the comparison of NCAA national championship banners (five to none), final fours (eight to two) or NBA draft picks (73 to 44). That’d just be beating a dead horse.

There’s also no reason to mention that in the last 24 games, IU has gone 16-8 against Purdue. And that’s even with the Boilermakers getting the benefit of playing those post Kelvin Sampson-era teams.

IU has won four straight against Purdue. Last year in the two games against Boilermakers the Hoosiers beat them by a combined 65 points.

Woof. Wow. Jeez. Holy smokes.

I can’t think of any more newspaper-friendly exclamations to express the complete dominance the Hoosiers had over the Boilermakers last season.

This season the two teams come in with identical records but very different
futures.

On the one hand, IU has proven it can beat anybody in the country — see No. 3 Wisconsin and No. 10 Michigan — and proven it can lose to anybody — see Northwestern and Penn State.

This IU team is as inconsistent as that Plinko game on “Price Is Right.” Sometimes they come out gangbusters, and sometimes they come out and fall flat on their face. But there is no denying the gobs of young talent that just needs more time to grow and improve.

On the other hand — Purdue is just bad.

The Boilermakers best conference win was at home against Minnesota. And it took them only three overtimes and an injured Andre Hollins to win.

Naturally, Purdue fans get a little grumpy about being second fiddle, and their little brother inferiority complex rears its head as ugly as Purdue Pete when IU comes to Mackey Arena.

And that brings us back to Sheehey. The “Paint Crew” harassed and made its personal mission last year to torment Sheehey.

And I get it. He’s cocky. Sometimes he’s arrogant. But most of all, as the janitor from “Scrubs” would say, “He’s so. Damn. Talented.”

In other words — he’s a Hoosier.

So boo him. Torment him. Try and make his life miserable. But Sheehey is not as much as a “bad boy” as he’s been in years past. He’s tamer and less emotional.

But I hope he reignites that Sheehey swagger for this game. Remember last year what he did after he drove the lane, got fouled and made the basket?

Oh, you had already left Mackey Arena because of the 37-point beat down? Let me fill you in on what happened.

Sheehey ate up the boos. He pounded his chest and flexed for the Purdue
students.

That flex was 40,000 Bloomington natives strong. Sheehey will graduate next year. The “Paint Crew” can find new Hoosiers to hate.

But it doesn’t matter.

You can take the Sheehey out of IU, but you’ll never take the swagger out of Indiana.
And “This is Indiana,” dammit.

Score prediction: IU — a lot, Purdue — much less, Sheehey flexes — hopefully at least four times

Evan Hoopfer is 9-6 in his predictions this year.

­— ehoopfer@indiana.edu