That Annoying TTU Jordan

To say that Durant took Xu Ling's challenge seriously before the game would be pure nonsense. Looking across the entire college basketball landscape, opponents he truly respected could be counted on one hand. Although the season was barely halfway through, Durant was already being hailed as the freshman with the greatest immediate impact in history—a conversation that naturally included Carmelo Anthony, who had led Syracuse to a national championship in 2003. What was more, every member of the media who reached this conclusion had plenty of numbers to back it up. Beneath his season averages of 28 points and 11 rebounds, Durant's stats surged to 33 points and 13 rebounds per game when looking strictly at Big 12 matchups, where he led his team undefeated through conference play—unquestioned dominance. His goal was to pry the No. 1 overall pick away from Greg Oden. As for players like Xu Ling—who had started the season in obscurity before a midseason breakout launched him into lottery projections—he might be a prodigy, but in the public eye, prodigies came in different tiers. So before the game tipped off, and even through the first few possessions, Durant had not taken Xu Ling seriously at all. That was, until Xu Ling scored right over his head, fired off one line of trash talk after another, and even forced a turnover out of him on the defensive end. Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Durant realized for the first time: this "TTU Jordan" might actually be tough to handle. If he did not bring his absolute best, Xu Ling might just eat him alive. So on the next possession down the floor, Durant flowed to his favorite spot on the right wing to receive the ball. Xu Ling stuck to the game plan, applying relentless pressure even before Durant touched the ball. But very quickly, he realized Durant thrived under pressure. With a slight glance, Durant's 208-centimeter frame and 226-centimeter wingspan made one thing obvious: his physical profile was an entire tier above Xu Ling's. Xu Ling reached up to contest, only to realize the sheer release point was far too high to disrupt with length alone. Durant pulled the trigger as if nobody were there—swish. Then, just as Durant turned to head back, Xu Ling's earlier taunts flashed through his mind. Unable to swallow his irritation, he glanced back and tossed out, "Your defense isn't all that great either." The words hung in the air. Did someone need to remind Durant that it was not bad defense, but rather his absurd, freakish gifts? How could he steamroll someone's defense purely on physical profile and then drop a critique like that? "Don't sweat it," Jarrius Jackson said. "Just lock him down next time." Xu Ling flashed a grin. "I'm not sweating it." Yet this guy who claimed not to mind immediately followed up with: "Give me the ball." Xu Ling's teammates had not even crossed midcourt, and they already knew the script. Martin Zeno dished the rock. Those who could shoot spaced out as far as possible, and those who could not cleared out to the opposite side of the floor. The entire offense instantly isolated, setting the stage for a one-on-one showdown. Durant took a deep breath, preparing to pour everything into his defense. He dropped his stance and spread those impossibly long arms. But rookies like him all suffered from the same flaw: growing up relying so heavily on raw physical superiority that physical instinct far outweighed technique and court awareness. This was especially common among athletic freaks—and in extreme cases, it gave birth to phenoms like Ben Simmons, who convinced themselves they could dominate the game without ever developing a jumper. Xu Ling dropped his center of gravity and exploded forward with a violent jab step. In that split second, Durant's defensive balance was badly compromised, but his freakish length still allowed him to contest. Yet Xu Ling's footwork shifted. Before Durant could square his center back up, Xu Ling had already gathered the ball and snapped laterally to the right—a side-step jumper. In an era where isolation scorers favored long mid-range pull-ups or attacking the rim, step-backs were looked down upon as flashy gimmicks, and rare lateral step-backs like this were even less appreciated by basketball purists. Yet Durant was shaken completely off balance. Xu Ling pulled up off the dribble to the right of the free-throw line, banking the jumper cleanly off the glass. "Kevin Durant wants to prove he's the premier freshman in the Big 12, but Eli has hit him with an immediate punch to the mouth, as if to say, 'No, man, you're not the best—I am!'" With that bucket, the duel between the two kicked into high gear. Durant believed his one-on-one game was unbeatable; Xu Ling thought otherwise. On the next trip, Durant did not isolate with the ball in his hands like Xu Ling. Instead, he relocated off the ball to carve out an opening, unveiling his most terrifying attribute: once he found daylight, his teammates would unfailingly find him, and in those moments, unless a defender could instantly close out and contest right in his face, his catch-and-shoot accuracy was frightfully lethal. Durant answered back in kind. Ten seconds later, as if determined to prove he could match every offensive weapon in Durant's arsenal, Xu Ling began moving off the ball as well. Furthermore, Texas Tech ran far more off-ball motion schemes than Texas. Bob Knight was the grandmaster of the motion offense. Heavy doses of isolation were the last thing he ever wanted to see; it was only because of tonight's unique spotlight that he indulged Xu Ling's urge to arm-wrestle Durant. Now that they settled into their tactical sets, Xu Ling and the team slipped right into their comfort zone. Player movement and sharp ball circulation generated a clean look for Xu Ling in the corner. Durant was a beat slow to close out. Xu Ling launched from beyond the arc. *Swish!* "Look at this!" play-by-play commentator Dan Shulman marveled. "Eli and KD have turned this game into a two-man show! They've accounted for every single point scored since the opening tip!" His broadcast partner Dick Vitale jumped in: "Kevin Durant is still Kevin Durant, baby, but tonight Eli is playing with far more aggression than anything we've seen from him! He's not just out to prove he belongs on the same floor as KD—so far, he's actually outplaying him!" Yet no matter how dominant a freshman might be, no one could sustain a two-man shootout from tip-off to final buzzer. Out of nowhere, Longhorns guard D. J. Augustin slashed into the lane for a layup, snapping the Xu Ling-Durant scoring streak. The two cooled off for a few minutes, giving Xu Ling a welcome moment of quiet to study Durant's off-ball habits in real time. Setting all other factors aside, Xu Ling noticed that Durant's bodily rhythm and stride frequency meshed together in flawless harmony. Xu Ling thought with a trace of vanity, *Yeah, that's basically looking in a mirror.* The underlying secret was far more intricate than mere balance. It required extraordinary physical gifts, supernatural coordination, innate touch, and years of accumulated ball control. On top of that, you had to seamlessly weave everything you learned into your personal rhythm on the court. Generally speaking, the taller a player was, the more lumbering they became, and the harder it was to control their balance. For most seven-footers, nuanced ball-handling was an afterthought—capitalizing on pure size mattered more than anything else. Xu Ling's touch and ball-handling had been honed over his previous life, while his physical gifts had come with transmigration; a package like his was one in hundreds of thousands. Durant was ten centimeters taller, yet their coordination, feel, and ball control were practically identical. That meant Durant's raw physical ceiling was simply an overwhelming mismatch. Basketball was just that kind of unforgiving sport. On any given possession, you could truly feel the "beauty of raw stats" oozing from someone blessed with overflowing talent. Still, Xu Ling refused to sell himself short. Even someone as legendary as Michael Jordan had not started out with raw physical measurements vastly superior to his own, so what made Jordan the GOAT? It proved that talent was merely an admission ticket; the factors determining how high you ultimately soared went far deeper. A strong gut feeling told Xu Ling that relying solely on physical bumping and body pressure would not cut it anymore. That was like hacking at a mountain with an ordinary blade—diminishing returns. He needed to find the fissure in the rock. His gaze drifted instinctively to Durant's legs. *Every move he makes—loading up, spinning, rising for the shot—it all starts right here,* Xu Ling thought. *What if I anticipate his movements... or disrupt his base?* It was a bold, risky gambit, but he decided to take the gamble. Midway through the first half, the score remained tightly contested. While the duel between Xu Ling and Durant was not as explosive as the opening minutes, the tension remained razor-sharp. Off the bench, Texas Tech's reserve scorer Alan Voskuil drained back-to-back triples, pushing the Red Raiders' lead to six. Durant decided it was time to make something happen. Backing down Xu Ling in the post, he put up a hand calling for the ball. His teammate fed him immediately. Xu Ling shifted away from his earlier strategy of chest-to-chest post defense. The moment Durant gathered the pass, instead of digging his chest into Durant's back, Xu Ling quietly pressed a forearm into the small of his back while deftly slipping a leg between Durant's feet, dismantling the foundation of his lower-body leverage. Thrown completely off-kilter, Durant had no choice but to force an awkward, off-balance spin, attempting to muscle up a shot against his own momentum. His move was far too predictable. The moment Durant turned, Xu Ling's hand chopped down like a guillotine blade, stripping the ball clean. "Eli strips KD face-to-face!" Gathering the loose ball, Xu Ling bolted down the floor at full throttle, punctuating the fast break with a thunderous, rim-rocking slam. "Foul! That was a foul!" Durant protested to the referee, waving his hands. "He dug his forearm into my lower back and tripped up my stance! That's a textbook violation of my cylinder!" From down the court, Xu Ling's deadpan response drifted over: "Why don't you just tell him I blew up the whole world while you're at it?" Durant glared daggers at Xu Ling. The two had been bumping heads from the opening jump ball, and over ten-plus minutes of play, every sour impression had coalesced into simmering animosity. That feeling pointed toward one crystal-clear verdict: *I can't stand this guy!* Xu Ling's grin remained intact. He had not expected Durant to lose his composure so easily. At the end of the day, Durant was still just an eighteen-year-old freshman; compared to a "super-senior" like him who was living a second life, the kid still had a long way to go. Controlling Durant's core and wedging into his lower body to wreck his rhythm—that was Xu Ling's new defensive tactic. Truth be told, he was not particularly practiced at these underhanded tricks; having it work on the very first try was pure bonus. He decided to double down on that physical badgering. Under Durant's persistent complaints, the officials grew vigilant regarding Xu Ling's defense. Eventually, with hands that were not entirely clean, Xu Ling slipped up and gave himself away. A sharp whistle pierced the air. "Yes! That's it!" Durant clapped his hands in vindication. "That's a foul every day of the week!" Xu Ling merely offered a relaxed smile. "Hope the refs show up on time every time you run into trouble." With that, Xu Ling rolled his wrists and shoulders, scheming quietly to himself: *Mmh, looks like I still need to polish up the finer points of those veteran tricks...*