Leal tried really hard, season to remember. Pride of IU.
The home win over PU was one of the more satisfying wins over PU. It was the way we did it, down ten at the half, dominating the second half with Purdue leaving the building stunned. Myles Rice picking Braden Smith’s pocket for an easy bucket was one of those IU moments needing to be preserved in slow motion time as a quick fix for bouts of depression.
Other special wins over PU-
- Winning the ‘79 NIT championship (thank you, Clarence “Butch” Carter)
- 29 point beatdown in Mackey. The highlight, you ask? Will Sheehey’s sideline bicep muscle flex with a befuddled Pillsbury doughboy of a Cro-Magnon cheerleader in the background. I was there and haven’t been invited back since.
- Jalen Hood-Shafino’s 35 pt unstoppable barrage in Mackey. It was at that moment we fully appreciated how good he really was and sadly for us, gladly for him, NBA bound. With a name like Jalen, I always knew he’d be good. He played with an instant level of maturity, the game in his command.
I want to say I’ve seen about 2 wins in Mackey and roughly 3-4 losses. I don’t go up there if I think we don’t have a chance.
Witnessed live my first one in ‘70, I think it was. Was with two PU friends from grade school as my special guests. In the Old Fieldhouse next door now with its historic sawdust-“paved” walkways, IU lost. At my last game in Mackey I sat with those same two amongst about ten other stooges for Purdue I knew. Me being the only one in red made for a personally satisfying event, this “beatdown game” in need of time encapsulation. After getting back to the car, one of the PU guys presented me with a red and white can of trunk-cooled Budweiser, iced cold for the hand. It was at that very moment the irony was simultaneously reflected back at us, eye-balled in motion marked “slow,” along with the silence of nothing else needing to be said. It proved itself to be a mighty fine beer, indeed, consumed in the backseat of a carload of silenced Boiler nuts driving home. That “silence” I keep speaking of, this silence broken only by my occasional guzzle before, “Ah-h-h!” Later punctuated in boisterous belch of no excuse.
Have I already I told you I haven’t been invited back? At least I punched my final ticket there in the “good one” column.