Before the game tipped off, outside observers had expected a fierce clash, and for most of the first half, it had lived up to the billing. But once Xu Ling locked down Acie Law, the momentum swung decisively in Texas Tech's favor.
The rest of Texas A&M's roster relied far too heavily on Law's playmaking; the moment his level dropped, the whole team began to waver.
By halftime, TTU led by 12 points.
ESPN commentator Dick Vitale made a bold prediction: "Unless Acie Law figures out a way to shake Eli's defense in the second half, the Red Raiders are going to kick off their 2006–07 conference tournament run with a resounding victory!"
Yet Xu Ling's defense only grew sharper in the second half.
Texas A&M was held firmly by the throat, unable to mount a single effective counterattack.
When the final buzzer sounded, the scoreboard read 87–66. Texas Tech had secured a blowout victory with a 21-point cushion.
If the earlier Pete Newell Invitational could be brushed off as a preseason warm-up that didn't demand serious scrutiny, Xu Ling's dominant showing tonight against a projected lottery pick senior was something no one could ignore.
"18 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 4 steals, and 1 block," ESPN's Dan Shulman rattled off. "Eli, who claimed he was going to be the college Jordan, played like a six-foot-seven Gary Payton tonight. He utterly wiped Acie Law off the floor on the defensive end!"
Xu Ling high-fived his teammates and noticed several media outlets waiting by the sideline to interview him.
He walked over.
"Eli, congratulations on winning the conference tournament opener. How do you feel?"
"I don't feel much of anything. This is just the beginning."
"Acie Law has been ranked near the top by numerous authoritative draft projection outlets, and he's widely viewed as a lock for the lottery, but you clearly shut him down tonight. How did you do it?"
"I'm taller than him, faster than him, and more athletic than him," Xu Ling stated bluntly. "It wasn't that hard."
The ESPN reporter then posed one final question: "We noticed you seemed indifferent to the cheering from the fans. How do you view the audience's response?"
Interaction between athletes and fans was an essential part of sports.
Xu Ling had drawn a fair amount of criticism because of this. Some people thought he was arrogant and cold toward the fans, since he never acknowledged the crowd's cheers on the court.
"I suppose I'm just a bit obtuse," Xu Ling replied in all sincerity. "If I pay too much attention to things outside the court, I can't stay focused on the game."
So that was his excuse?
The sports reporters present didn't entirely buy it, but at least that was how he acted.
Still, Xu Ling's indifference to the crowd clearly went beyond Tim Duncan's low-key, strictly-business demeanor. He made it so blatant that it almost felt deliberate.
Yet it wasn't a major issue. Most sports fans were masochists at heart; as long as a player was good enough, their tolerance was beyond imagination.
Having wrapped up the media session, Xu Ling brushed off the reporters hoping for one-on-one interviews and headed straight for the tunnel.
On both sides of the corridor, TTU students were screaming at the top of their lungs.
"Eli!"
"Xu!"
"We love you!"
Some held up jerseys and sharpies, desperate for Xu Ling's attention.
Xu Ling had experienced scenes like this countless times in his previous life, so he had long grown accustomed to it. Eager to leave, he paid them no mind.
In the wake of the game, the ripple effects began to multiply.
First came the escalating media hype.
"We never imagined that a Chinese freshman could take on the assignment of locking down the best point guard in the nation. But last night, Eli Xu showed us it was entirely possible."
So began the postgame column by the renowned NBA draft website DraftExpress.
The next day, on the front page of ESPN's official website, the headline photo featured Acie Law looking up helplessly from beneath the rim while Xu Ling hung suspended in midair, his palm swatting the basketball away, the blurred crowd in the background parting like a private stage. Beneath it ran draft expert Jay Bilas's assessment: "Texas Tech ranked only 72nd nationally in defensive efficiency last season, but after this game, they might crack the top 30—and that shift is entirely due to Eli Xu. He not only dismantles opponents on offense, but he also knows how to make the opposing star disappear from the court."
Then came ESPN's popular writer Bill Simmons. With his beloved Celtics mired in one of the worst slumps in franchise history, he was paying exceptionally close attention to the 2007 draft class, which had been hailed as a legendary super-draft.
After reviewing the tape of Texas Tech against Texas A&M, he promptly penned a column showering Xu Ling with praise: "Do you know the fundamental difference between Eli and Yao Ming? Yao is a 7'6" tower in the paint, while Eli Xu is someone who can apply pressure from beyond the three-point line, shut down driving lanes with textbook defensive slides, erase shots with explosive verticality, throw down posters in transition, and knock down perimeter jumpers at an elite level. Let me put it bluntly: he reminds me of my Celtics' franchise legend, 'Hondo' John Havlicek. And do you know the best part? Hondo had a college teammate named Bob Knight. Yes, that Bob Knight—who just happens to be Eli's coach right now. I truly believe the basketball gods have arranged everything perfectly."
Simmons concluded by predicting that if Xu Ling kept playing like this, it wouldn't be long before he solidified his place in the draft lottery.
Soon, domestic Chinese media caught on as well, realizing that a top prospect had surfaced in the NCAA who stood a high chance of becoming China's next NBA player.
The hype across the Pacific caught fire immediately.
The fan response was the most electric of all. Under the headlines of the Houbo Sports website, comments flooded in with unrestrained excitement.
"Holy crap, a guard! A guard! Not another mass-produced, plodding giant like Big Fool Yao!"
"Stop clowning, you Luoyang Kai fanboy! King Ming is a once-in-a-generation talent!"
"Isn't this basically a taller Dwyane Wade? Shoe brands better open their checkbooks right now!"
Debates, praise, and shock swept through Chinese basketball forums. Within a single day, Xu Ling's name bridged two worlds, making him the hottest topic in the sport.
The only change Xu Ling noticed in his own daily life was the poster in the team's practice facility.
Where the poster of the team's last Sweet Sixteen run used to hang, there was now a fresh shot of Xu Ling posterizing Acie Law.
It was the sole difference, and it had infuriated Knight.
"Who the hell did this?! It's just one damn Big 12 game! Was this necessary?!" Knight barked, swearing up a storm. "You'd think the bastard just won the fucking John R. Wooden Award!"
As luck would have it, Xu Ling was right there in the gym.
Knight didn't possess an ounce of shame about talking behind someone's back. When caught by the subject himself, he merely wore an unbothered expression: "Don't you think this is a bit too high-profile?"
"No, I actually quite like it."
"What?"
"Compared to the Wooden Award," Xu Ling said, "I really do prefer the Posterizing the Nation's Top Point Guard Award. Don't you like it, Coach?"
Knight sneered. "Sounds to me like you've let all the outside praise blow your head clean into the clouds!"
"Not quite there yet, but getting close," Xu Ling replied.
"Then you just wait to get your ass handed to you by the real world!" Knight looked as if he suffered from a chronic allergy to seeing Xu Ling feeling pleased with himself. "You think Acie Law is the whole world? He's a nobody! Good as he is, he's just one of the top players in the country, and he's not even at the very top!"
"Is that so?"
"No shit!" Knight's fiery temper flared instantly. "Never mind anyone else—just take Mike Conley, who's in the same freshman class as you. He's way better than Acie Law!"
Xu Ling remarked casually, "If we run into Ohio State in March Madness, my attention will only be on Greg Oden."
"Oden?" Knight was fuming. "You're already thinking about Oden?! We just won one tournament game, and you're already looking ahead to Oden?!"
Xu Ling felt obliged to remind his head coach: "You're the one who brought up Ohio State first, Coach."
"I brought up Mike Conley!"
"Who cares about Mike Conley?" Xu Ling said. "I only care about Oden."
"Enough! I've had it with your nonsense! You arrogant prick, the world is going to teach you a painful lesson sooner or later! And let me remind you one last time—you aren't even the top freshman in the Big 12!" Knight yelled. "That title belongs to Kevin Durant! If you want to see Oden, you'd better get through Durant first!"
To be fair, those two things weren't strictly sequential.
Still, Knight's sudden remark genuinely caught Xu Ling's attention. He turned to assistant coach Chris Beard: "Coach, when do we play Kevin Durant?"
Having the schedule memorized down to the minute, Beard answered, "Next Saturday. And we play them twice this season. But before that, we've still got Kansas to deal with—and that's a tough bone to chew."
Knight grunted, turning on his heel to leave.
Suddenly—
"Wait, that's not right!" Xu Ling called out.
Knight glanced back. He didn't ask, but his expression said it plainly: *What the hell isn't right?*
"The most important thing before any of that is that our dear head coach, Bob Knight, is about to hit a career milestone," Xu Ling said with a grin. "Just two more wins, and you'll pass Dean Smith to become the winningest head coach in college basketball history. I don't think anything matters more than that."
"You talk way too much damn nonsense today!"
Coach Knight—the highest mountain in college basketball in his own mind, and undeniably its longest river at present—glared at Xu Ling. "Seems that scrub Acie Law really didn't put enough pressure on you. You've got too much energy to burn. Tell you what: add another thirty minutes of defensive footwork drills to your schedule today. You're not going home until you finish every last rep, and I don't want to hear a single word of protest!"
With that, Knight actually walked out.
Xu Ling looked toward the assistant coaches. "Can any of you talk some sense into him?"
"Do you honestly think The General is going to listen, Eli?"
Calling him "The General" behind his back... Xu Ling couldn't begin to imagine how sickeningly sweet they sounded to his face.
Much later, when most of the players had already left, Xu Ling was still grinding through his defensive footwork drills inside Womble Gymnasium.
Ever since he declared himself the college Jordan, Knight had ramped up his workload, making him do an extra thirty minutes of defensive footwork every single day compared to the rest of the team.
Xu Ling knew it was genuinely beneficial for sharpening his defense, so he hadn't resisted. But tacking on another thirty minutes on top of that existing bonus was pure torture.
Cursing the old man under his breath, Xu Ling soldiered through the grueling session.
When he wandered back near the main court, he noticed Jarrius Jackson was still there, putting up extra shots. Xu Ling asked, "Captain, you haven't headed back yet?"
Jackson released a shot. The ball clanked off the front of the rim and bounced away. Instead of chasing down the rebound, he turned around, looking at Xu Ling with a complicated expression.
"I was thinking about something."
"Something good? Something bad? ...Or just something boring?" Xu Ling asked casually.
To his surprise, Captain Jackson asked a question that caught him completely off guard: "Do you believe in God?"
The question came out of nowhere, leaving Xu Ling momentarily stunned.
As a transmigrator, giving a simple answer was no easy task.
"I'm not entirely sure," he answered thoughtfully. "I tend to believe in the things I can see and the things I can achieve."
He wasn't a follower of any religion in his daily life, so his answer was thoroughly pragmatic.
"Well, I believe," Jackson said, bending down to scoop up the ball, his tone firm and steady. "God gave me my talent, and He guided me onto the basketball court. So whether things are going well or going rough, I'm willing to follow His plan."
Jackson paused, his gaze deepening as he looked at Xu Ling. "And now, you make me feel more and more that us being brought together has to be part of God's design—He wants us to achieve something truly great together."
"Like winning a national championship?" Xu Ling asked with a grin.
"Oh, hell no!" Jackson looked at Xu Ling in disbelief, as if he had just made an absurdly tall claim. "Unless you can beat Kevin Durant, don't go talking about a national championship. What I mean is, we can make a real run at the Big 12 title."
Xu Ling instantly lost interest. "I'm still more interested in beating Durant."
"Since you put it that way, I guess I'll have to crank up your training difficulty!" Jackson stepped up to Xu Ling and fired a hard pass into his chest. A grin crept across his face—the slightly wicked smile unique to a team captain and upperclassman. "Starting right now, I'm on offense off the dribble, and you're guarding me! If you can't stop my drive, you're doing another thirty minutes of drills!"
Catching the pass and feeling the force behind the ball, Xu Ling grinned as well.
"Captain," he said, dropping his hips into a defensive stance, "you'd better pray that your game today is really as good as when God is watching over you."
Chapter 15