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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports men's basketball

OPINION: Processing IU men’s basketball’s loss to Purdue with Freudian defense mechanisms

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When confronted with uncomfortable or possibly harmful stimuli, humans resort to various subconscious defense mechanisms to manage their emotions.

For example, I think it’s safe to say IU’s 81-69 defeat to Purdue was a fairly negative stimulus for Hoosier loyalists. 

Therefore, it’s only natural they would fall back on those tried and true coping methods to stave off all the melancholy that comes from losing to your rival eight consecutive times. 

[Related: Read other IDS men’s basketball coverage here]

Rather than drone on about how this was a particularly bad showing for the Hoosiers because I’m supposed to detest the team in black and gold a little bit extra, I want to explore the various mental strategies fans used throughout IU’s eighth consecutive loss to Purdue.

Denial

Seeing is believing, and I’m firmly shutting my eyes to everything on the screen before me. Twitter assures me IU head coach Archie Miller can’t afford to lose to Purdue, so why would he?

For every long-range jumper the Boilermakers bury, I bury my insecurities deep inside my cold, crimson heart. 

Purdue shot an absolutely bonkers 78% from beyond the arc in the first half. According to prepscholar.com, that’s roughly equivalent to IU’s rate of admission. If you correctly answered 78% of the questions on the ACT, you would earn a 27, easily putting you in IU’s average range of accepted scores.

In short, operating at 78% sets you on a path to success in Bloomington, something the Boilermakers discovered firsthand Thursday night. 

While viewers were refusing to process what they saw, the Hoosiers weren’t denying the Boilermaker offense many opportunities.

Regression

When reality becomes too hard to ignore, we often revert to a juvenile frame of mind. 

For Hoosier faithfuls, this might mean lashing out at the television screen like an enraged toddler. Perhaps it materializes as an older fan slipping back into the nostalgia of the glory days when IU dominated the Big Ten and a Big Mac cost a nickel or whatever. 

How great was it for a familiar face like sophomore guard Armaan Franklin to return from his ankle injury and contribute 14 points and seven rebounds?

You could set your watch to Franklin’s double-digit scoring total, a warm, delicious slice of reliability from the pepperoni, anchovy and anxiety pizza that the past few months have been. 

Unfortunately, IU shot 55% from the charity stripe and a pitiful 17% from the perimeter, regressing to a style of offense from which the Hoosiers allegedly had progressed.

Displacement

All right, who can I blame for the way I feel?

I would call out the players for being sloppy, but nine turnovers is nothing to be ashamed of, especially when racking up 23 points on the Boilermakers’ own errors.

In my desperate search for a target, I settle on the empty bleachers themselves, but even that doesn’t curb my frustration.

I’m sure the vacant stands didn’t do IU any favors, but let’s not forget the Hoosiers lost 74-62 last year in a packed arena on the very day Bob Knight returned to Assembly Hall. 

Sometimes, one squad performs better than the other with or without an audience full of students who totally could have made that shot and swear to God the refs are taking bribes. 

Eventually, the disenchanted spectator runs out of potential victims and circles back around to good old-fashioned self loathing. 

Speaking of displacement, has anyone checked how many spots IU was booted down in the Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings? I’m not quite ready to see for myself. 

Sublimation

Finally, we begin funneling all our vitriol into something socially permissible. 

Like Vincent van Gogh channeled his depression into marvelous artwork, keyboard warriors and self-proclaimed basketball experts flock to the internet to publish detailed manifestos explaining their favorite team’s failures. 

The lucky ones even get paid to do it.


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