BLOOMINGTON – Dick Van Arsdale is standing next to his framed jersey, that No. 30 he wore at IU, the only way Hoosiers coach Branch McCracken could tell the difference between Dick and his identical twin. Dick is standing about 10 feet from the midcourt stripe at Assembly Hall, and his brother is here too. They’re being honored at halftime of the Purdue game, and there’s Tom on the other side of midcourt, next to his framed jersey: No. 25.

The crowd is standing and applauding. Dick is smiling, waving. Tom is watching his brother. It’s what he does, what he’s done since that day in 2005 when they were living in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Dick’s wife called Tom early in the morning, couldn’t have been later than 6 a.m., and said he needed to get over here. Tom lived less than a mile away. He was there in minutes and found Dick sitting on the edge of the bed, talking up a streak, making no sense.

“He was talking gibberish,” Tom Van Arsdale says. “I knew what had happened.”

A stroke. Almost killed him. Doctors took a scan of Dick’s brain and determined … well, let’s have Tom tell you about it. We’re sitting inside the Spirit of ’76 Club overlooking the court at Assembly Hall, maybe an hour before tipoff of the Purdue game on Feb. 19, and 76-year-old Tom and Dick Van Arsdale are taking me down the colorful hallways of their past, remembering and reminiscing and laughing. So much laughing. Tom’s doing most of their talking, as he has since that morning in 2005 when Dick suffered a stroke and doctors took a brain scan and ...

“It showed that half his brain was dead,” Tom says.

Dick is sitting in a chair next to his brother, so close their knees are almost touching. Half his brain was dead? Dick does what he does, delivering an earnest line that has everyone laughing so hard, we’re almost in tears.

“I don’t know about that,” Dick says. “Don’t tell me that.”

A few hours later it’s halftime and the Van Arsdale twins are on the court. The crowd is cheering and Dick is smiling, and Tom is watching his brother. This is what he sees: The collar on Dick’s blue plaid shirt flapping open.

Tom catches his brother’s eye and pretends to tighten the collar of his own blood-red shirt, which needs no adjustment. His twin understands. Dick reaches for his own collar and makes the adjustment. Tom smiles. Dick smiles.

The crowd is still applauding, and now Tom is walking toward his twin, crossing the only thing separating them. Tom steps over the midcourt line and wraps an arm around his brother’s shoulder. There. Better.

Adolph Rupp couldn't pry them from IU

When the Van Arsdale twins came into this world, they arrived so early (seven weeks premature) and so tiny (barely 4 pounds each) that they spent their first month in a hospital incubator. After six weeks they went home with their parents, Raymond and Hilda, where their dad carved a halfcourt into their backyard near where the Greenwood Mall now stands.

The boys fell in love with IU during the Hoosiers’ 1953 NCAA championship run, watching on television as IU beat Kansas. They kept stats of that game in identical notebooks, and 66 years later they can recite the 1953 Hoosiers’ starting lineup.

Tom starts, but after four names he pauses: “Schlundt, Farley, Kraak, Scott …”

“… and Bobby Leonard,” Dick says with a triumphant smile.

“That’s right,” Tom says. “Slick Leonard.”

Adolph Rupp sat in their living room in Greenwood in 1960, but the legendary Kentucky coach never had a chance. No, the Van Arsdale twins had a plan, and Kentucky wasn’t in it. Getting good enough to attract the attention of a school like Kentucky? Well, sure.

To get better in the offseason, they left their southside suburbs and headed for the inner city, for the courts that produced NBA Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson and fellow Crispus Attucks alum Willie Gardner. They headed to the Dust Bowl, the famed court of the Lockefield Gardens housing unit. The Van Arsdale brothers stuck out, and not because they were identical 6-5 bruisers with thick swatches of blonde hair.

Well, maybe the blonde hair …

“In those days,” says another former Crispus Attucks standout, Cleveland Harp, who went onto play for the Harlem Globetrotters, “they were the only white players who went to Lockefield to play with the black players. It was unheard of, but they did it. And let me tell you something: They could take a lick. And they could give one.”

After playing together at Manual, where Raymond taught math and coached track while Hilda handled the switchboard, the twins played together at IU. They finally split up in the NBA – Dick was drafted 10th overall by the Knicks, Tom 11th by the Pistons – where they played on separate teams for 11 years, though they were reunited for their 12th and final year in Phoenix. Together. Better.

They retired in Scottsdale. Ran a real estate company. Now they share an art studio.

So close, the brothers. Always have been. But that morning in 2005, it changed things. Where they’ve always finished each other’s sentences, it’s different now. Tom will help Dick when the wrong word pops out, as it does from time to time. Tom is the one with the email address you’ll need to reach either brother. He’s the one who will read this story to Dick.

The Van Arsdales sure had that weird twin thing

For days after they first came home from the hospital, Hilda Van Arsdale kept the hospital bracelet on each boy’s wrist so she could tell them apart. At IU, McCracken made them wear different-colored socks at practice for the same reason. Games were easier. They had those numbers on their jerseys.

The Van Arsdale brothers have always had that twin thing, sharing the IndyStar Mr. Basketball award as seniors at Manual High in 1961, then sharing the Trester Award for Mental Attitude after the state title loss to Kokomo. But that twin thing …

At IU, Tom scored 1,252 career points and grabbed 723 rebounds. Dick’s numbers were almost identical: 1,240 points and 719 rebounds. In 12 seasons in the NBA, Dick had 15,079 points and 3,807 rebounds; Tom had 14,232 and 3,942. They were both All-Big Ten. Academic All-American. All-Rookie. Same number of All-Star Games: three. In those games, Dick totaled 16 points, Tom 13. Each took 16 shots in three games. Dick made eight, two more than his brother.

And here comes Dick, sitting in the Spirit of ’76 Club before the Purdue game, with another of his earnest lines.

“I could always shoot it better,” he says, and we’re laughing.

I’m with the brothers six whole minutes before I bring it up:

You must get asked about being twins a lot, I tell Dick and Tom Van Arsdale, but holy cow do you have a weird twin thing going.

“Yes, we do,” Tom says.

Even with weird twin things, I keep going, you guys are really weird.

“Well,” Tom says, “it’s eerie.”

They swear they did the “twin swap” just once, and not on the basketball court. It was baseball and they were age 11. In those days teams had to register a pitcher for the full season, and Tom was their team’s pitcher. One day his arm is sore, so he and Dick swap hats – the team didn’t wear numbers; Tom wore a green hat and Dick a red one so teammates could tell them apart – and Dick does the pitching instead.

“Our parents didn’t even know,” Tom says.

Now, truth be told, Dick did want to swap jerseys in the NBA. Twice.

“Dick and I played in a few All-Star games against each other, and there was one time he wants to switch, and I said I won’t do it,” Tom is telling me, and now he’s looking at his brother, sitting so close their knees are almost touching.

“You wanted to switch,” Tom tells Dick.

“And our last game of …” Dick says, trailing off. He’s not finding the word.

Tom helps out: “In Phoenix?”

Dick nods.

“That’s right,” Tom says of the final game of their career, in 1977. “You wanted to switch in Phoenix. And I wouldn’t do it.”

All of which has me wondering: So of the two of you, is Dick the naughty one?

“Maybe,” Dick says, earnestly.

A stroke leads Van Arsdales into art

On their feet here in the Spirit of ’76 Club, they’re wearing the same shoes: Samuel Hubbard size 14’s. Brown leather. White soles. On the lapels of their blazers are the same pins: A miniature artist’s tray, dotted by tiny colors.

“We found these today,” Tom says. “The Antique Barn downtown. They’re earrings. So I bought them.”

They were always more than basketball players, more than jocks, going with their mom to the Greenwood Public Library for a reading club as children and starting a habit that carried into the NBA. When teammates were playing cards on the team plane, the Van Arsdale brothers were reading. They were econ majors at IU, and when they worked in the offseason to supplement what were once modest NBA salaries, they were stockbrokers.

After the NBA they went their separate ways professionally, somewhat, with Tom running the brothers’ real estate company while Dick – called “the original Sun” as a member of Phoenix’s NBA expansion team in 1968, when he scored the first basket in franchise history – held various roles with the Suns. But that morning in 2005, the stroke, changed the trajectory of two lives.

Dick’s rehabilitation was long and tedious. He was relearning to speak, but he could use his hands just fine, and hadn’t he always liked to draw? Sure he had, even in the NBA, when he’d use some of that down time to grab a pencil and start doodling.

Dick decided to get back into art. And Tom, well, he decided: That’s a good idea. They converted their real estate office into an art studio, split it in half and got to work. They show up most mornings, Tom on one side of the room, Dick on the other.

They sell the occasional item, but their art isn’t about commerce. It’s the twins’ connection beyond family and time, something they share, like basketball, yet do individually. Dick has his pencils, and he draws in realism. Tom has his oils, and his paintings have a decidedly impressionistic feel.

They have shared so much over the course of 76 years, and the reminders are coming fast in the Spirit of ’76 Club at Assembly Hall. A former IU team manager approaches for a hug. A brightly dressed woman walks past, offering a hello.

“Glad you made it!” Tom shouts, then leans over and whispers: “Dick dated her in high school. She was a Manual cheerleader for the state finals.”

Dick is smiling and nodding, mostly silent, letting Tom handle the talking. In all ways he is safe with his brother, sitting so close that their knees are almost touching. Known for their on-court ferocity, even when directed at each other, their relationship today is marked by tenderness.

Soon they will be on the Assembly Hall court, perhaps for the final time, where Tom will wordlessly tell Dick to fix his collar. Dick will do it. And then they will walk off the court arm in arm, the inseparable Van Arsdale twins of IU basketball. Together. Always.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.