BLOOMINGTON – Matt Haarms comes bouncing out of the Purdue locker room, hair still wet from the shower, smile still huge from hitting the last-second shot that beat IU 48-46.

How crazy, I’m asking him, was that? Haarms answers me in machine-gun form, short and staccato sentences, pow pow pow …

“It was crazy,” he says. “It was beautiful. It was amazing. Just amazing. It was just …”

I’m interrupting Haarms to make sure he understands me. I’m talking about the irony that it was you who hit that shot, I’m telling him, referring to his long-distance tip-in of a Carsen Edwards miss with 3.2 seconds left.

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“Oh, I get it,” he says, and here comes the staccato again, this man talking like he plays: 7 feet, 3 inches of caffeinated energy. “They were all over me. It was bad. It’s always bad. It’s bad at Michigan, at Michigan State, at Maryland, at Iowa, but not like this.”

If you were in the arena, you heard it. If you were watching the game on ESPN, you heard it. Chances are, if you were simply awake and within 50 miles of Assembly Hall on Tuesday night, you heard it:

(Bleep) you, Haarms!

Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap

(Bleep) you Haarms!

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That’s what the IU student section was shouting at Haarms, who plays like he talks – 7 feet, 3 inches of caffeinated energy – and to understand all of this, you really need to understand Matt Haarms: He plays hard and emotionally, not dirty at all, but he does it in a frenzied, animated, gangly sort of way. He’s 7-3, as I’ve said, all arms and legs, and those arms and legs tend go all over the place.

On this night, they tended to go all over IU center De’Ron Davis: In his chest, his stomach, over his shoulders. Once the referees called a double foul on Haarms and Davis. Once they called a foul only on Haarms, and a technical as well.

(Bleep) you, Haarms!

Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap

(Bleep) you Haarms!

That was the message, and it was all game, not just those two times he tangled up with Davis. He tangled with Romeo Langford another time, his feet finding Langford’s feet as both went down. Haarms got the foul and Langford got the free throws and the crowd got the opportunity to do it again:

(Bleep) you, Haarms!

Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap

(Bleep) you Haarms!

Middle of the second half, Haarms has the ball, and those feet start going all over the place. He gets called for a turnover. Traveling. Bedlam.

(Bleep) you, Haarms!

Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap

(Bleep) you Haarms!

Which makes the way this game ended just about perfect. Well, perfect for Haarms. And perfect for Purdue, which won for the 10th time in 11 games as it barrels down on a possible Big Ten title.

Not so perfect for IU, which lost for the 11th time in 12 games as it barrels down on an impossible collapse. Once a 12-2 team with wins against Marquette, Louisville and Butler, the Hoosiers now are 13-13 overall, 4-11 in the Big Ten.

Thing is, this game was different for the Hoosiers. The Hoosiers played like they cared, mainly. They outrebounded Purdue 47-38, held the Boilermakers to 31.7 percent shooting from the floor and 20 percent from the 3-point arc, and forced Purdue into more turnovers (10) than assists (seven).

The Hoosiers may well have won this one if it weren’t for Haarms, who was lurking behind Juwan Morgan in the final seconds as Carsen Edwards drove for one last final, futile shot. This was a strange game for Edwards, who was 4-for-24 from the floor and missed all 10 of his 3-pointers. He was shooting air balls. He was missing dunks. Strange, I’m telling you.

And on the final play of the game for Purdue, it was Edwards who shot it (of course) and it was Edwards who missed (of course) … and it was Haarms who was lurking behind Morgan, rising above him, clubbing the ball — not tapping it, but clubbing it — off the glass and into the basket.

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And the crowd? Not a word. Not a peep. Stunned silent, you’d call Assembly Hall, and for the IU student section this was good. This was a teachable moment, about hubris and humility, about writing checks with your alligator mouth that your team on the court, the one with a hummingbird rear end and 10 losses in 11 games, can’t cash. Something like that.

IU played hard, but hard wasn’t enough on a night when Romeo Langford started the second half in the locker room, throwing up. He finished with 14 points and nine rebounds in 32 minutes, a gutty performance for a player whose placid demeanor and smooth movements betray the competitive monster that he is. And he is. To put up 14-and-9 against Purdue, against an NBA-level defender like Nojel Eastern, on a stomach that was bickering until it was bubbling over? That’s monstrous.

But it wasn’t enough, not even on a night Carsen Edwards couldn’t shoot and Purdue couldn’t rebound. Langford was the only IU player to score in double figures, with Morgan coming closest (nine points, 11 rebounds). Davis pulled his weight inside (eight points, six rebounds), but everyone else was a combined 6-for-29 from the floor.

And the way this game ended? Terrible for IU, and not just the winning bucket being scored by Matt Haarms, of all people. Also, the two kids from Purdue sitting in the front row. Their names: James Pendleton of Chicago, and Will Juchman of Indianapolis. Soon as the game ended, James and Will pulled out the banner that one of them had sneaked into Assembly Hall by stuffing it into his pants. It was a big banner — a queen-sized bed sheet, looked like — with markings that celebrated the Boilermakers and mocked the Hoosiers and noted, most of all:

1,094 days since IU beat Purdue.

IU fans were grumbling as they walked past the banner. One of them tore the banner from Pendleton’s hands, knocking it to the floor. Pendleton picked it up and waved it some more. That was happening at one corner of Assembly Hall in the seconds after Purdue beat IU 48-46.

This was happening in the other corner: Matt Haarms was pumping his fist and running through the tunnel, past the students who had been cursing him. Haarms is telling me about it later, his hair still wet, his smile still huge, his words still coming fast, fast, fast when I ask if the crowd was still yelling at him after the game.

“Probably,” he says. “I didn’t hear. I wasn’t listening. I was too busy being happy about this win.”

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