FORT WAYNE – So I hook into the IU basketball website now, and up there in one corner – above the link bar and the photo of Cody Zeller dunking and the photo of Tom Crean in full cry – there’s a digital timer. Right now, early on Wednesday afternoon, it reads “3 days, 4 hours, 6 minutes.”

Next to the timer, it says this: “Countdown to Kentucky.”

I guess that makes it official, then.

I guess we can finally say, once more with feeling, that it’s Indiana, it’s Kentucky, and batten down the hatches, Martha. This is Banner Wars again, finally. It’s Bob Knight vs. Joe B. Hall. It’s five national titles vs. seven, and the Righteous Path vs. Here’s The Keys To The Lexus, Son – or, if you bleed blue instead of crimson, the Holier-Than-Thous vs. the Real Cradle Of Basketball, And Don’t You Indiana Hayseeds Forget It.

’Bout time all that showed up again.

It has, truthfully, been 20 years and change since Indiana-Kentucky was Indiana-Kentucky, except for the occasional outbreak. Across the last 18 years, the Hoosiers have beaten the Wildcats only four times and just twice in the past 12 meetings. Among those 10 Indiana losses, only once has Kentucky’s margin of victory been fewer than 14 points. And in the three most recent meetings, they’ve won by 19, 17 and 18.

That’s not a rivalry. It’s Sitting Bull vs. Custer.

Ah, but this time …

This time Kentucky comes to Bloomington 8-0 and ranked No. 1.

This time Indiana is 8-0, too, and suspicion grows that it’s not a counterfeit 8-0, considering it’s won some games it couldn’t have won without a court order last year. In its eight victories, it hasn’t won by fewer than 11 points.

Kentucky will likely get closer than that, of course. It will likely win. But Indiana will likely not go down like the live sacrifice it’s been here lately, because these Hoosiers are not those Hoosiers.

They’re better, particularly on the defensive end. They’re deeper. They’ve got experience, at long last, and they’ve got the big-time player in Zeller.

“I think they are more of a complete package,” said Stetson coach Casey Alexander, an 84-50 victim, when asked to compare IU with some other opponents. “Florida is great offensively and Florida State is really good defensively. I think Indiana has a chance to be better, more solid on both ends of the floor collectively.”

Florida, for the record, is 5-2 and ranked 12th. Florida State is 8-3 and received points in this week’s polls.

So, the Hoosiers have got that going for them.

The rest of us have our memories of the days when Indiana-Kentucky mattered, if not nationally than at least regionally. There are some good memories there, if you care about college basketball at all. Some of them are even closer than you might think.

I close my eyes now, for instance, and I see 2004, the RCA Dome, the final seconds running out. The scoreboard reads Indiana 79, Kentucky 53, a thorough and rare thumping.

Over on the Indiana sideline, 268-pound forward Marco Killingsworth is draped over Mike Davis like an overcoat, and Davis is wearing a full-meal-deal grin of indeterminate wattage.

“Yeah, tonight (basketball) can be on every channel in every room in my house,” Davis would say later.

“At least when the scores come on (tonight), I won’t feel like I have to turn it to the freakin’ Oxygen Channel or something.”

And then, a bit later: “We beat them jokers.”

And now, the jokers are back. In – let’s see – 3 days, 0 hours, 26 minutes.

Buckle up.