Hoosier odds are long, but are they Buster Douglas long?

First appeared on February 3rd, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

February 11th will mark the 20th anniversary of the night James “Buster” Douglas knocked Mike Tyson out to win the Heavyweight Championship of the World. Coming in a 42-1 underdog, Douglas left Tokyo having shocked the sports world and secured a place in boxing eternity.
Some believe the Indiana Hoosiers will face similar odds when the Purdue Boilermakers come to Assembly Hall Thursday night. The Boilers sprinted out to a 14-0 start and, after some part-time hack of a sports columnist cursed them by spotlighting their dominance in his writing, they proceeded to lose three straight. Now, after beating Wisconsin and drumming Penn State, it would seem they have righted the ship. Surely Boiler fans want nothing more (outside of a National Championship) than to hear the drumbeat continue Thursday night in Bloomington.
One could say with some certainty the Hoosier’s season to this point has been quite different. After letting a winnable game at home against Iowa get away, the Hoosiers controlled the second half Saturday at Illinois and played well enough to win, only to be beaten at the buzzer. So they’ve lost their top scorer, dropped an ugly game to Iowa and lost at the buzzer to Illinois. What could be worse? Oh yeah, here comes nationally ranked Purdue. The question in the B-town coffee shops now is how much life can be left in the Hoosiers after they’ve lost so much?
The fervor of this rivalry is well documented (see one side chanting “BOILER UP!” and the other answering in unison, “BANNER UP!” for proof), so truth is this series is so much about emotion that it really doesn’t matter where these two find themselves now.
It’s a time when the proverbial records are actually given the proverbial toss out the proverbial window. A rivalry so volatile we’re used to seeing coaches so heated they resort to throwing things; Knight and his chair. Keady and his jacket. Samson and, well take your pick between his future away or the program under a bus.
In a new era Tom Crean and Matt Painter fit the mold. Both are fiery in a “fire in the belly for winning” kind of way. Certainly not the “lose temporary touch with reality” way we saw after Mike Davis stormed the court in Lexington only to dance around like somebody had tossed a voodoo doll of him into a hot skillet.
So what will happen Thursday? The only certainty in all of this is, at one time, an unknown like Buster Douglas could never have ever beaten Mike Tyson. Tyson was the closest thing to Superman the sports world had ever seen. He had never even been knocked down in a fight before. Of course twenty years later we’ve all heard how that story turned out (well Evander Holifield has heard bits and pieces of it anyway).
Crean said recently his kids need to be tougher. The Hoosiers will have to be physical to survive Purdue’s football on hardwood style, even if Tijan Jobe goes 4/5 from downtown. This game will merely be a progress report for Crean’s crash course on toughness however and not a final exam.
What we see Thursday night could be interesting…or it could be ugly. If it’s analysis you seek, the Hoosiers will be smart to stay aggressive and attack Purdue even when logic says protect the ball in the face of their smothering pressure. Crean’s mantra should be “Take them 10 rounds”; absorb their best shot and outlast them. Thursday night the Indiana Hoosiers could do worse than aspiring to be Buster Douglas for a day.