Today, GoldandBlack.com continues a new weekly feature. We're calling it the Weekly Word.

Why? Because it has words, it's posted weekly and we're just that unimaginative. (Actual feedback from Week 1: Definitely like the content, but a new name would be useful.)

Anyway, here are some random thoughts for the week, most of which will be Purdue-related.

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Purdue has a potential near-term late-first-round NBA draftee right now in Carsen Edwards, and he may not even be the Boilermakers' most intriguing pro prospect.

That would be Matt Haarms, whose combination of dimensions, mobility and skill should have put him on the radar of NBA people paying close enough attention last season. Now, now that Haarms has played the past few weeks at a first-team All-Big Ten level and stood tallest among the reasons Purdue's an eyelash from a championship, he'd better be.

I'm not writing this to remind you how good Haarms has been. You're watching the games, and you're seeing a player emerging very quickly into the Boilermakers' next star center, not that long after Trevion Williams also established himself as the Boilermakers' next star center.

No, I'm writing this to point out how good Purdue is with this big-man business.

Matt Painter doesn't always recruit pros, but if there's been a better coaching staff in the country at identifying and developing them, then I'll be damned if I know who it is.

Purdue's had terrific big men under Painter, only one of which came to West Lafayette ear-marked for the NBA. Of the others, they've come in all shapes and sizes. JaJuan Johnson was every bit the polar opposite of Isaac Haas physically as Matt Haarms was of Carl Landry, all of them being the polar opposite personality type, shall we say, of A.J. Hammons.

Hell, look at the two guys now.

When Trevion Williams made his official visit to Purdue, he probably weighed 350 pounds; when Matt Haarms made his official visit, he was so narrow he just barely qualified as multi-dimensional.

Purdue has thrived at times with this season with both of them playing at high levels, and will presumably continue to into the future. They're both underclassmen, remember, and while Haarms is now in that position where he'd be wise to go through the NBA draft process this spring, there's no reason to think Purdue won't have at least one more year of this combination.

Then, history tells us, they'll have somebody else, another foundational big man who'll become a very good college player, then get paid to play thereafter.

That's been Purdue's M.O., and it's as good as anybody out there at it.

Hey, kids, raise your hand if you want to hear another take from a lame old sportswriter on the 'IU Sucks' chant!

Yeah, didn't think I'd see many hands, but oh well, you're not supposed to be reading this in class anyway.

He's right, you know.

Matt Painter, he's right.

And while it might seem like the old man is picking a difficult hill to die on here and taking on a losing battle on behalf of decorum in sports in the Year 2019, he's right, and someday you might come to realize it. The 'IU Sucks' chant reflects poorly on Purdue. It makes it look small and petty and plays right into the hands of all the rival fans you like to argue with, that while they're focused on Final Fours and national titles or whatever else, you're focused on them.

But here's where Painter's wrong, guys and girls: Inferring an equivalency between 'IU Sucks' and 'F--K You Haarms.'

You see, the latter is not only profane and an affront to my delicate g*****mn delicate sensibilities as well as yours, but it is deeply personal and a tad aggressive.

'IU Sucks' is more than a little uncouth, but nowhere near as targeted and menacing.

I'll put it this way.

I grew up hating the Red Sox, hating the entity, the very concept of it, the moral and ethical vacuum that I chose to believe the rival of my team — the New York Yankees — to be.

I hated the Red Sox.

Does that mean I personally hated Jim Rice or Dwight Evans or Ellis Burks or Mo Vaughn or Kevin Youkilis or Pedro Martinez?

No, of course not.

Except for Pedro. He can choke on it.

I kid.

Hating the Red Sox was more a way of life than it was an actual practice, and that's what 'IU Sucks' is. It's a statement of, 'We're Purdue and here's where we stand on this particular matter.'

'F--k You Haarms' was different, something that manifested itself from the passion of a rivalry, the whims of youth and the peaking acceptance of venom-spewing around sports. The Social Media Generation, with all its 24-hour, hand-held, perfectly impersonalized access to one another, strikes again.

Those kids, years from now, will realize it, if they've not already, that that crossed a line.

'IU Sucks' is much less severe a transgression of tact, but the matter of scale doesn't make it any less, well, tacky.

I get it: Traditions are tacky. Often, stupid.

Minnesota fans yell something — 'Ski-U-Mah' – that makes them sound like they should all be wearing bibs, strained peas and carrots all over their faces.

Deep down, they know they sound like fools out of context, but it's the context of tradition that makes them do it.

'IU Sucks' has become a tradition and that's hard for people to let go of.

But now's the time.

There is a solution here, kids — or, I'm sorry, young men and women, that being what you are — an answer that will make everyone happy.

Tyler Trent was one of yours. And many around here want something permanent to remember him. Permanence takes on many forms, tradition being one.

Cancer does suck. I think we can all agree on this.

Listen to your coach. He loves you. I know this because he talks about it all the time, and so do his players, sometimes probably directed to, others not.

Yes, Matt Painter is on the verge of winning the Big Ten, giving him ample collateral right now to address a sticky issue, to ask something of the students who give his program so much, to run the risk of losing some cachet with not only Mackey Arena's current heartbeat, but also the program's next generation of ticket-buyers, donors and mothers and fathers with children to raise to either hate the Red Sox or not.

You might think he's being a prude, and you might think he's trying to take away your fun.

But I know what his former players very often find themselves saying a few years after they leave Purdue, and you may, too.

"Damn, Painter was right."

He is, you know.

Senior Day on Saturday stood in stark contrast to what it might have been had November and December remained the Boilermakers' enduring reality this season.

This could have, and probably should have, been a season where Purdue took a step backward. That's how it works when you lose a great and deep class, return only one player established in a leading role, and welcome half a roster's worth of debuting players. There was just too much new.

That Purdue didn't take a step backward obviously speaks volumes about a lot of things and a lot of people, perhaps no one more so than those seniors honored on Saturday, Ryan Cline and Grady Eifert.

They say that culture wins, and there can be no better reflections of culture than seniors, those most immersed in it, those responsible in their final seasons for sustaining it, if not amplifying it. This season came with challenges in that sense, probably more than people realize.

And seniors are like quarterbacks, given an outsized share of the credit when a team wins and an outsized share of the blame when it doesn't.

Had 6-5 stuck, this could have been a pretty conflicted sort of senior day, the sort that programs that aren't as accustomed to winning as much as Purdue is, especially at home, have a lot.

But 6-5 didn't stick, and Purdue may soon claim one of the most improbable championships in its generations-long history, and there's no 'outsized' when it comes to the credit Cline and Eifert deserve.

Cline will be on my All-Big Ten ballot next week, and mine shouldn't be the only one. You could make a case Eifert deserves a vote simply as a nod to his penchant for game-changing, clutch opportunism. No way Purdue's in the position it's in minus Eifert's magnetism to the moment.

Senior Day was something, as it so often is at Purdue, and it was so because now, Cline and Eifert don't only leave, but they leave with a legacy.

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