This feels different, this IU-Purdue basketball game, the 209th in series history. It doesn’t feel bigger than normal, no. How can it feel big when one team, IU in this case, comes in with 10 losses in 11 games? It can’t. And doesn’t.

But if feels different nonetheless. Darker. Ominous, maybe. Yeah, that’s the word I’m looking for. It feels ominous, dangerous, and here I’m talking about the future of this program under Archie Miller.

Is this the game that gets a man fired? No. Of course not. That’s not what I’m saying. But this is the game that could push a grumbling if mostly apathetic IU fan base off the ledge, over the edge, into full-throated fury mode.

Now, to be perfectly clear, this also could be the game where IU starts to heal. Only one opponent on this year’s schedule can do that for the Hoosiers, and that opponent is coming into Assembly Hall on Tuesday night.

Purdue has won nine of its past 10 games and is ranked No. 15 in the country. The Boilermakers are the anti-Hoosiers, surging into March while IU is staggering. For IU, for Archie, for a program that already has beaten No. 10 Marquette, No. 11 Michigan State and No. 16 Louisville, beating the bejeezus out of the Boilermakers — or winning by a single point — would do wonders.

But losing …

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And IU already has lost huge at home this season, by 15 points to Nebraska and by 23 to Michigan …

Ominous.

And Archie gets it. That Minnesota game, IU’s 21-point blowout loss Saturday to a team that had lost four in a row, shook something loose inside the IU coach. The Hoosiers had one assist in the first half? Trailed by 30 at one point? That reeks of IU quitting. It reeks, period, and what Archie said afterward was alarming, downright chilling. What he said, per IU Insider Zach Osterman from Minneapolis:

“For us, this is sort of a deal breaker,” Archie said. “We have to make some real, in my opinion, drastic changes to the way we’re doing things right now. We’ve got to get some guys’ attention, and we need to get some guys to play better.”

We’ve got to get some guys’ attention …

Who does Archie bench — if anyone?

The IU starting lineup Tuesday could be revealing. Maybe Miller was blowing off steam after the Minnesota game, didn’t mean it, won’t do it. Or maybe this will be our strongest clue yet as to who or what is wrong with the Hoosiers. And to be as clear as I can: Something is wrong here.

Talent isn’t the problem, not on the court, and not on the bench. And by bench I mean Archie and his coaching staff. Those guys have won everywhere they’ve been. They can’t win here? With a roster that includes one returning All-Big Ten player (senior Juwan Morgan), one likely lottery pick in the 2019 NBA draft (Romeo Langford), and a half-dozen or more players ranked among the top 150 recruits in their high school graduating class?

Nah. Talent isn’t the problem, and anyway, Archie has won more with less. He took Dayton to the Elite Eight among four consecutive NCAA tournament appearances that landed him the IU job, beating up opponents with rosters that played bigger than they were, stronger, better. Under Archie, Dayton played like five fingers clenching into a fist. Under the same coach, IU is playing like five fingers pointing in five different directions.

Makes no sense.

Maybe the lineup Tuesday will be an a-ha moment for the rest of us. If Archie wants to get some guys’ attention, one way is leave them on the bench for the starting lineup or, if they’re already not starters, leaving them on the bench for all 40 minutes. That would do the trick.

Then again, nah, it probably wouldn’t.

For whatever reason, Miller hasn’t reached his team. And by hasn’t, I mean: can’t. He can’t reach this team. Lord knows he’s tried, but the Hoosiers have their fingers in their ears and la-la-la-la-la they can’t hear a thing their coach is saying.

Miller tried being bluntly honest earlier this season, calling them soft and scared. Didn’t work. They kept losing. So he went the other way, saying the losing was on him, that he and his staff needed “to make them feel as good as they can right now.” Didn’t work. They kept losing.

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Now bluntly honest Archie is back, all but calling out Morgan, or Langford, or maybe both after the Minnesota game, saying: “You can try to push as many buttons as you want to push. You need your best players, you need everybody moving in the right direction, rowing in the right direction, working as hard as they possibly can.”

Who’s not working hard enough?

And which direction are Juwan and Romeo rowing?

Those are “your best players,” are they not? They’re so far and away the Hoosiers’ best players, even as Romeo has been fading since the first Purdue meeting — a 15-point loss where he scored four points — I don’t even know who No. 3 might be.

Rob Phinisee, who hit the game-winner against Butler but has faded to the background since, averaging 5.1 points and 1.6 assists and shooting 27.9 percent in his last 11 games? Justin Smith (8.4 ppg), whose body and explosiveness scream NBA, but whose consistency and effort (4.4 rebounds in 26 minutes per game) are silent? No, I’m saying the Hoosiers’ third-best player — not their third most talented player; that would be erratic Devonte Green (7.9 ppg, 3.0 apg) — is Al Durham (8.4 ppg, 40.6-percent shooting on 3-pointers).

And Al Durham isn’t the Hoosiers’ problem.

This Matt Painter quote won't help

Who is the problem at IU? Not for me to say, which is my way of admitting: I have no idea. But the other day, after Purdue beat Penn State, Boilermakers coach Matt Painter unleashed an amazing quote about his team. He was talking about Purdue, only Purdue, but I was hearing the anti-Purdue. I was hearing Indiana, and wondering: Is this the Hoosiers’ problem?

Painter answered a reporter’s question about winning for almost two minutes, but here’s the part that had me wondering about the school 100 miles to the south of West Lafayette:

“As long as everybody will play their roles and stick together …” Painter said, and then started over. “There’s always adversity on teams. I got guys that don’t play as much that are younger, and those guys have had good attitudes … Now, if you’ve got people on teams that don’t have good attitudes right there, that hurts your team. So we’ve been able to have good attitudes and good guys, and those things lead to winning. I think we can get better.”

Does Indiana have good attitudes? Does IU have good guys? Whatever the Hoosiers have, it has led to losing. And if you don’t think it can get worse, well, check the schedule. See who’s coming into Assembly Hall on Tuesday.

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