Growing up in Indiana, everyone is faced with a decision: IU or Purdue.

Ask any kid born and raised in Indiana that goes to Ball State, Indiana State, Valparaiso, even Butler or any other in-state school which college basketball team they grew up rooting for. Chances are, they will say they are either a Hoosier or a Boilermaker fan.

Tuesday night’s matchup in West Lafayette between the two heated rivals probably wouldn’t have interested anyone outside of Indiana as both teams played a physical – sometimes sloppy – 40 minutes resulting in a 67-53 Boilermaker victory. Purdue was led by its two senior stars E’Twaun Moore and JaJuan Johnson, who scored 25 and 15 points, respectively, for the home team.

“We didn’t play mistake-free basketball,” IU coach Tom Crean admitted after the game, “When you’re playing guys like that (Moore and Johnson) who are so dominant on their team, you’ve got to be as relatively mistake-free as you can. It’ll be interesting to play these guys someday when those two aren’t in there dominating the way they do. They’re good.”

IU hasn’t beaten Purdue since Eric Gordon was playing for Kelvin Sampson, but the Hoosiers have continued to get better against their rival in the Tom Crean era.

“They’re definitely improving every year,” Johnson said after the game, “Coach Crean is doing a good job of getting players and getting them to play hard. That’s what they do at IU- they play hard and they play together. I know they’ll get on the right track.”

Adding more sizzle to the rivalry is the battle for in-state recruits between Tom Crean and Matt Painter. Currently, the two rosters combined have 17 players who hail from Indiana on their rosters. The Hoosiers will have even more in-state talent come to IU in the next few years as Crean has received commitments from Cody Zeller, Austin Etherington, Kevin Ferrell, Ron Patterson, Devin Davis, Collin Hartman, James Blackmon, Jr., and Tre Lyles- all players born and raised in Indiana.

Even out-of-state players such as Will Sheehey from Sagemont, Fla. get a sense of what the rivalry means in the state of Indiana.

“I saw first hand today what it’s all about,” Sheehey said in his postgame interview, “It means a lot to these people, and it means a lot to us as well.”

The rivalry will now come back to Assembly Hall, where the Hoosiers fell to Purdue 78-75 last season when a Verdell Jones III three-pointer rimmed out as time expired.

“We’ll all be a lot healthier, hopefully we’ll have Christian (Watford) back,” Jones said, looking ahead to the Feb. 23 rematch. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get them then.”

When asked if he’s looking forward to his second taste of the rivalry, Will Sheehey responded, “Of course,” with a smile of confidence.