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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Toward the end of a game in which every little thing mattered, Carsen Edwards made the play of the game — perhaps the season thus far — when he passed to Grady Eifert in the final minute of overtime in Purdue's eventual overtime win at Wisconsin. Eifert was fouled, made both free throws and the Boilermakers maintained the lead those shots yielded.

It brought something to mind.

Perhaps no one in the history of sports has dumbed down the general population by subjecting us to more stupid takes than LeBron James. I love LeBron James; I loathe the cottage industry of troll media and litany of mindless narratives he's spawned.

One of them came from his willingness to pass off in "clutch" situations, the criticism being that this renders him "not clutch," which in the context of dumb GOAT takes, is a fate worse than death.

It's dumb, but it's the 140-character, sound-byte world we live in, one in which context and perspective caught the last train for the coast years ago.

What does this have to do with Carsen Edwards passing the ball to Grady Eifert?

Not much, except to illustrate how great players are viewed in basketball these days.

Maybe I'm making too much of this, but I don't care.

Carsen Edwards might be the best scorer in college basketball, and he's a returning All-American. When Matt Painter calls for a 2-for-1 in that situation, mandating Purdue get a quick shot, and Purdue has the game's foremost quick-shot-getter, and quick-shot-maker, everyone expects him to get that shot up no matter what. He may have expected to get that shot up no matter.

That he traded that moment for something better — maybe Edwards would have made the shot he didn't force; the only outcome we have to go by is the final score — bucked the general expectation of the great player.

It was a smart, self-less, ego-less play, and above all else, it was a winning play.

That's the very definition of "clutch," is it not?

I heard a radio ad the other day from the good folks at Indiana Business Journal, and they were talking about a recent report that came out assessing value in higher education in the state and it reminded how big a deal that stuff is in academia.

Dirty little secret: There are many in that realm who will quietly rue the methodology and such of outfits like US News and World Report when compiling its highly influential rankings of colleges and universities. Those folks will then bend over backwards to do everything in their power to make sure those rankings reflect them in the most positive light possible.

Why?

Because that's your brand, that's your identity, that's your buzz. That's everything.

When it comes time for Johnny and Suzy to apply to colleges, first impressions can be big ones.

But rankings of all kinds — whether it's educational programs or the College Football Playoff's process — are unavoidably disputable, because rarely are there processes that can't be debated and rarely can subjectivity be completely eradicated from those processes.

The same goes for recruiting rankings, the highly visible horserace that might be the difference between getting a coach his next job or getting a coach fired, the arena where those who stack up well take no issue with the system and those who don't typically do.

I know many of you think recruits get ranked completely willy-nilly by some 400-pound guy in his bed in New Jersey. You're wrong, at least about the "willy-nilly" part. A lot of time and effort goes into this stuff, and like anyone, this is your name on the line, and professionally, we're only as good as the names we make for ourselves.

But, yes, it is the inexact science of all inexact sciences, taking the most combustible commodity on earth, the 18-year-old male, and projecting its development.

So recruiting rankings should never be taken with the authority of a Commandment. Thou shalt not lie to the media about your offers, though, kid.

Anyway, my point is this: Rankings are flawed, yes. But if you ask whether they matter, the answer is simple: You're damn right they do.

Competitive and successful people embrace it. Purdue wrote bonuses into its football coach's contract tied to those rankings.

Athletic departments are the same as the universities they're part of. Perception is everything.

If Suzy sees that Faber College is ranked as having the seventh-best Latin program in America, but is ranked as most affordable among those ranked I though VI, then maybe it's worth a look, a look born simply from a fleeting glance.

If Johnny is a four-star-ranked offensive guard, and he just got a letter from Adams College, then he notices that according to Rivals.com or one of its contemporaries, Adams signed a highly ranked class before him, then that may be the hook that gets the whole thing started.

Recruiting is perception.

And rankings are perception.

It's not uncommon for fans, when things aren't going so hot for their preferred team, to convince themselves that their team would be incredible if only the stupid coach wasn't playing the wrong guys.

There's a reason that recruiting is a trillion-dollar industry — OK, that might not be true — and that's because the future sells. Same principle applies. When today isn't particularly interesting, or sometimes even when it is, the possibilities for tomorrow are infinite. And in those situations where tomorrow can be today, um, today, then heads explode.

That came to mind through much of this season to this point for Purdue as fans crowed for Aaron Wheeler and to a lesser extent — and now greater extent — Trevion Williams, both incredibly promising players who've been mired in various stages of readiness to this point.

And when coaches get paid to win games, they must side with ready.

Williams wasn't ready earlier this season. Hell, not only wasn't he ready in November, but Purdue was still wary of the thought of him passing out during workouts from losing so much weight so fast. He still may not be ready, at least in a traditional sense, but it's not stopped him from producing in a way that gives reason to believe he may be Purdue's next star.

Wheeler backs up Grady Eifert, who lacks most everything Wheeler has, but has so much of what Wheeler lacks, so much tied simply to experience. In time, Wheeler will have more of those things. In the meantime — and in the wake of Purdue winning a game it would not have without Eifert's play — it's OK to be patient.

Williams will tell you his time spent idling on the bench wasn't necessarily lost time, because he was still learning. Wheeler would likely tell you the same, and he was playing.

Everybody develops at a different rate.

Again, patience normally pays off, for all involved.

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