WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The sounds from inside the victor’s locker room were loud and ecstatic. There was hooting and hollering, joking and jiving, all sorts of robust clapping and congratulating.

The door opened, and the sounds burst forth like a backdraft. “The win that turns the season around!” someone shouted amid the clamor, which bounced off the walls that suddenly couldn’t contain the joy. “Turns the season around!”

You could feel the jollification from West Lafayette to Evanston and back.

It’s a great scene, to be sure, but-

I’m tempted, right now, to ask: All for what? Why the ecstasy, the fuss? What, really, did the Wildcats accomplish by barely defeating the second-worst team in the Big Ten?

Consider the following:

l The Boilermakers played without their best player, Carl Landry, who is out for the season with a knee injury (they haven’t had his services since the fifth game of the season).

l They have only seven scholarship players. Coach Matt Painter used no subs after halftime, which is simply mind-boggling when one considers that the pace of the game was considerably quicker than the typical Northwestern-Purdue train wreck (two years ago, the Cats won in Mackey Arena 40-39 in what was one of the ugliest games of the conference season).

l The Boilermakers now are 1-6 in the Big Ten and remain the only team in the league with a losing record.

And even so, the Cats were one stupendous shot from Craig “Don’t-call-me-a-freshman-no-” Moore away from losing their fifth straight game.

Basically, it’d be easy to remand the players for their excessive whoopee-dooing. It’d be easy to accuse them of staking too much on one win.

But I’m going to do no such thing.

Despite the facts – the ease with which a stodgy cynic could toss wrenches and “not so fasts” into NU’s overtime win – now’s not the time to question the players’ excitement.

After all, wasn’t it just last week that fans decried the team’s lack of energy, which somehow translated to a lack of passion? People publicly questioned Carmody’s “stoic guys” and wondered whether they were too stiff and cerebral to compete in the Big Ten.

Last night they put that theory to rest.

At the end of regulation, the entire team bounced onto the court in ecstasy. In the final minutes of overtime, there were lots of giddy, bewildered, “I can’t believe we’re about to win” grins up and down the bench. After the final seconds ticked off the clock, Moore hopped up and down, clapping furiously.

There was lots of thumping and chest pumping and bumping. Even during the game, Vedran Vukusic – usually the face of those “stoic guys” – threw down two dunks. Carmody hopped off the bench on several occasions to scream and pantomime whatever it is he pantomimes.

Afterwards, there was palpable joy, the kind that – even if you believe should be restrained – can’t help but make you feel good.

The Cats needed this one. If they lost, their season, quite simply, was over. With games remaining against Indiana, Michigan State, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio State (twice) and Wisconsin, a loss would have been the final nail in the coffin.

So forgive the players for feeling the win was like a resurrection.

“The shot that turned the season around,” Tim Doyle gushed over and over with a face flushed crimson and a smile that couldn’t be stripped off with turpentine. “Put that in your headline! The shot that turned the season around. I’m giving you good ink-“

He swept past the small group of reporters and towed his duffel bag down the tunnel. I was later informed that he had said, perhaps with a nudge and a wink, “We’re going to go celebrate tonight in Evanston pretty hard.”

If indeed “Evanston” awaited – it’s no secret that the basketball players enjoy- how shall we say-unwinding? – then so be it. College kids need the occasional outing to enjoy their youth.

Basketball and schoolwork can wait until after the savors of this wild win bubble away.

Considering all that happened last night, one should just be grateful the players aren’t carousing away their sorrows.

Sports editor Anthony Tao is a Medill senior. He can be reached at [email protected].