WEST LAFAYETTE – Grady Eifert is leaning against a wall outside the Purdue locker room. He’s hearing me, and he’s shaking his head. It’s almost unbelievable, what I’m telling him, and he’s trying to process it.

Not an hour earlier, Eifert had done what he does for the Purdue basketball team. He didn’t make the most plays Saturday in No. 12 Purdue’s 76-64 victory against Penn State — Carsen Edwards scored 21 points, and Matt Haarms had 18 — but it was Eifert who made the biggest:

A steal in the second half when Penn State was rallying, then burying a 3-pointer. Another steal, strafing the ball off the leg of Penn State’s best player, Lamar Stevens. A late bucket, the biggest bucket of the game, a driving, hanging layup with four minutes left after Penn State had whittled a 50-34 Purdue lead to 61-56. That made it 63-56, the Mackey Arena crowd of 14,804 was doing what it does — and this crowd loves to love Grady Eifert — and the Penn State uprising was finished.

► Get more of Gregg's award-winning work starting at $1 for 3 months

They didn’t give him the “MVP” chant Saturday, but that was last week against Nebraska, when Eifert was shooting free throws and the crowd was appreciating his game by chanting “MVP.”

“Teammates were tapping me on the leg, ‘Hey, they’re chanting for you,’ but I heard it,” he says. “Kind of hard not to, when it’s that loud.”

From walk-on to team captain to the MVP chant … what a crazy ride college has been for Eifert, a solid player at Fort Wayne Bishop Dwenger — honorable mention all-state as a senior — but without high-major scholarship offers. His dad, Greg, had played at Purdue, so Grady came here too. This is what Matt Painter said about that decision:

"A lot of times you get walk-ons and you're like, 'Ehh, I like you, you're a good high school player, but physically you can't play in this league,'" Painter said. "Well, he can. He'll knock the tar out of you. ... He can defend the position, he knows what the hell's going on and we can run offense with him.”

They can win with him, is what they can do. Just like they won Saturday, turning back a Penn State team that had beaten No. 6 Michigan four days earlier and took an 8-0 lead that had Mackey Arena murmuring and Painter calling timeout. But order was restored.

And Eifert restored it.

He had eight rebounds, more than anyone on either team. He had three steals. He took just three shots, but scored seven points. Also: two assists, no turnovers and one drawn charge. It was a typical Grady Eifert game, which is to say, the kind that doesn’t get a lot of attention outside of Mackey Arena.

So how did he get noticed by that small high school 70 miles to the south?

This is what I was telling him Saturday, outside the locker room after the Penn State game.

"Grady" is a school's battle cry

At Cascade High School, Grady Eifert isn’t just a basketball player. He’s a noun. He’s a verb.

Thing is, nobody at Cascade knows Grady Eifert. The coaches there, the players … no connection to Eifert at all. But it’s been a rough season at Cascade, the low point the Hendricks County tournament, where the Cadets lost to Plainfield and Danville by a combined 77 points. After the loss to Danville on Jan. 5, a Cascade assistant named Steve Phillips — a Purdue fan — approached Cadets coach Chris DuBois with a request:

“Watch this guy play.”

The guy was Grady Eifert. Didn’t take DuBois more than a few minutes of film study to see what Phillips was getting at.

“He plays like we want our players to play,” DuBois is telling me by phone early Saturday afternoon, a few hours before Penn State-Purdue tips off. “He doesn’t have to score a lot of points. He’ll take charges, make the hustle plays, make the extra pass, dive on floor. We started giving a Grady Eifert Award.”

It’s a framed picture of Eifert diving over a player for Maryland, straining for a loose ball. Every day, after practices and games, DuBois picks out the Cascade kid who worked hardest and presents him the Grady Eifert Award.

Well, most days.

“Sometimes,” DuBois says, “nobody has worked hard enough to earn it.”

And on those days, man do DuBois’ players get mad. At Cascade, they want the Grady Eifert Award. The Cadets are 5-16, but players who have never taken a charge in their life are taking them now. Against Western Boone on Friday night, Cascade 6-8 senior center Benson Walker, a shot-blocker by nature, planted his feet into the lane and took a charge. On the Cascade bench, teammates were yelling a single word:

“Grady!”

No, I’m serious. This is happening at Cascade, where players shout “Grady!” when teammates dive on a ball in practice. The Cadets practiced Saturday morning and then watched the school’s feeder program, a bunch of fourth- and fifth-graders, play an Optimist League game. When one of those little kids dived for a loose ball, the Cascade varsity yelled as one: “Grady!”

Grady is a versatile part of speech on the Cascade scouting report. It’s a noun: Who’s gonna be the better Grady on the team?

It’s a verb: Let’s Grady them.

“It’s anything we can stick it to,” DuBois says. “Our kids have really taken to it. We’re having a rough, rough year, and it’s something we’ve used to keep up their spirits and keep them going. And I tell them all the time: ‘We don’t know Grady Eifert at all, but I guarantee he’ll be a success in life. If he’s willing to work that hard on the basketball floor, he’ll do it in life.' As coaches, we want our student athletes to learn these traits to also be successful in their lives."

A few hours later, Grady does it again. Grabs eight rebounds, makes three steals, takes a charge. Wins a game.

Eifert comes out of the Purdue locker room, and I’m waiting in the hall. I’m asking him if he knows about Cascade, and he says he does. He knows about the Grady Eifert Award, but that’s all he knows. He doesn’t know kids are using his name as a noun, a verb, a battle cry. I’m telling him, and he’s shaking his head. He’s smiling. And he’s looking down.

“Wow,” he says softly. “That’s pretty special. Just to know you’re impacting someone ...”

His voice trails off.

“Wow,” he says again.

Yes, football is on his radar

So, football.

Oh, Grady Eifert might play. He’s not ready to say he will — he’s not close to saying that — but he understands the direction the NFL has gone, toward tight ends who played basketball in college. The Colts have employed several over the years, including Mo Alie-Cox and Erik Swoope. Antonio Gates will be in the Hall of Fame. He went from college basketball to the NFL.

And none of those guys had a brother playing tight end for the Cincinnati Bengals! Grady Eifert does, of course: Tyler, who went from Notre Dame to the Bengals and earned a spot in the 2015 Pro Bowl.

“It’s a good question,” Grady says when I ask him if he’ll follow in the footsteps of Cox and Swoope, and also his brother.

An NFL team could invite him to camp, or Grady could play for Purdue in 2019. The NCAA allows a four-year athlete in one sport to compete in a fifth year in a new sport.

Grady hasn’t talked to Purdue football coach Jeff Brohm about this — and again: he may never — but he has talked to his parents and his brother. He does get teased by Matt Painter: “You’re playing the wrong sport.” He does get told by Carsen Edwards: “You should be a tight end.”

“It’s more of a joke right now,” Grady says, “but after the season if I have the drive to keep staying in sports and I end up putting on 25 pounds, I mean, it would be fun to do. I’ve always loved watching football. Always liked physicality of it.”

Here’s where I tease Grady, but also say seriously: “So you’re not saying no.”

“It’s tough to say yes or no,” he says. “I wouldn’t be afraid of the opportunity if it presents itself, put it that way, but I’ll just have to wait and see. I’m not pushing to play football, but …

But?

“But it’s a good question,” he says. And gives another smile.

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