The relentless hype surrounding Xu Ling and Kevin Durant had earned this marquee showdown between Texas Tech and the University of Texas a national broadcast.
At halftime, the scoreboard read 46–42, with Texas Tech clinging to a four-point lead. Living up to all expectations, Xu Ling and Durant had put on a dazzling first-half duel.
Yet in the eyes of everyone watching, Xu Ling clearly had the upper hand.
The box score showed Xu Ling shooting 8-of-11 from the floor for an efficient 20 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 steals. Durant had countered with 22 points and 5 rebounds on 9-of-15 shooting.
Although Durant had more points, scoring was practically the only category where he held an advantage. Xu Ling, on the other hand, had played with remarkable savvy, displaying an all-around mastery of both on-ball and off-ball basketball. Most impressive of all was his stellar defense.
While Durant’s scoring and efficiency looked solid on paper, a large portion of his production had come off mismatches. Facing Xu Ling’s suffocating defense, Durant had run hot and cold. Xu Ling, by contrast, had repeatedly scored right over Durant’s head, laying bare Durant's shortcomings on that end of the floor.
Still, even if Durant had been slightly outplayed by Xu Ling, it would hardly hurt his draft stock. His slight frame, lack of core strength, and the vast room for growth in his defense were already well-known facts.
Xu Ling had merely highlighted those familiar flaws, but nothing he did would shake scouts' belief in Durant.
What truly turned heads was Xu Ling’s ability to exploit those weaknesses in the first place.
Was exploiting an opponent's flaws not fundamental to basketball? Certainly—when two sides were evenly matched in raw talent.
Against someone like Durant, knowing his Achilles' heel usually did little to stop him.
Yet Xu Ling had done it.
When his initial pressure proved ineffective early on, he adjusted his defensive approach on the fly, forcing Durant into an uphill battle in their matchup.
To counter this, Texas had gone to unprecedented lengths, drawing up an array of screens, pick-and-rolls, and cuts for Durant, relying on constant rotations just to slow Xu Ling down.
In the end, both players delivered a magnificent first half, but Xu Ling drew the louder praise.
As ESPN play-by-play announcer Dan Shulman put it: "Generational talents like Greg Oden and Kevin Durant usually come around once every five years. What makes this draft class truly extraordinary is having two such players arrive at the exact same time. Since the turn of the millennium, KD could have gone first overall in practically any draft outside of 2003. We’re truly blessed to watch someone like him in the college game. So seeing him neutralized by Eli out there is simply unbelievable. But baby, that's college basketball! You never know who's going to come out of nowhere and knock you flat on your back!"
"That’s right!" Dick Vitale chimed in with his trademark enthusiasm. "These are two of the hottest young stars in the Big 12, diaper dandies getting an avalanche of attention and hype! And tonight, both of them are exceeding that hype—especially Eli! If I were Chad Ford, I’d put Eli in the top ten of my mock draft the second the final horn sounds! After that first half, there is no way you can convince me that eight college players in the world are better than Eli!"
Without question, Xu Ling was the big winner of the first half.
Sitting in prime court-level seats at the United Spirit Arena were NBA pioneer and "the Logo" himself, Jerry West, alongside his assistant, Laura Granatella.
Granatella couldn't help but marvel, "Number one for TTU is completely stealing the show!"
West said nothing.
"Weren't we here to scout Kevin Durant?" Granatella asked. "Jerry, what do you think?"
*What do I think?*
The sixty-nine-year-old West had not even wanted to make the trip.
Yes, he knew Durant was a once-in-a-decade talent, and he believed Oden would be the next big thing. But recognizing that did not require the man widely regarded as the greatest roster architect in NBA history—their gifts were blatantly obvious to anyone with eyes.
There was no need for him to scout them in person. Truth be told, what the Memphis Grizzlies needed most was to hire a psychic to perform an exorcism on the franchise, praying for luck in the upcoming draft lottery.
*So why am I still sitting here?*
West stared intently toward the sideline. TTU’s No. 1 was currently doing a halftime interview. He was widely considered the cockiest player in the NCAA because he had proclaimed himself the modern-day Michael Jordan, yet he never acknowledged the cheering crowd. Was he an arrogant, irresponsible star who refused to embrace the public?
West couldn't say. From dozens of yards away, he could hardly judge a young man's character. But he undeniably sensed a familiar aura radiating from him.
The kid had shut Durant down early, dictated the tempo of the game with his offense, and then used his defense to render Durant practically invisible for stretches. If the Longhorns' coaching staff hadn't devised a quick countermeasure, that first-half duel might have ended in a total rout for No. 1.
West had also noticed No. 1 cycling through multiple defensive approaches against Durant. Although some techniques were still raw, rough around the edges, or outright ineffective, how many young players took the time to dissect the game at such a fundamental level?
Every time No. 1 gave up a bucket, West saw him stand staring blankly into space as he reflected and self-corrected. And on the very next possession, his defense would be sharper.
West had seen countless players steadily climb an offensive learning curve—basketball, after all, was about putting the ball through the hoop. But how many players could recalibrate their mental approach on the fly and produce a defensive curve that trended upward in real time?
As for his offense, that spoke for itself.
Going toe-to-toe with Durant and coming out on top was practically equivalent to possessing top-five scoring firepower in the entire country.
Moreover, unlike prolific collegiate scorers whose numbers were inflated by physical bullying or niche team systems, No. 1's offensive arsenal looked entirely translatable to the NBA.
"Well, my assessment..." West said slowly, "is that TTU's number one might already be better than Rudy."
Granatella gasped.
*Eli is better than Rudy Gay? Coming from the mouth of Jerry West?*
"Jerry, are you serious?"
Granatella wanted to remind West what they had given up to acquire Rudy Gay—they had traded away Shane Battier, West's favorite player on the Grizzlies roster!
West held no particular fondness for Xu Ling, nor any animosity. He simply evaluated young prospects using a rigorous, objective system.
Tonight had only been a preliminary look at TTU’s No. 1, and that was the conclusion he had reached.
"Yes. He's already a better player than Rudy right now." What West left unsaid was: *And I don't think Rudy will ever play the game the way this kid does.*
Determining whether a player was mediocre was an excruciatingly long process. It required piles of data and countless game films to eliminate every variable, only to conclude: *All right, he's a bust; let's not waste our time.*
But evaluating a good player? Or a great one?
Back then, West had made up his mind about Kobe Bryant after watching just fifteen minutes of a pre-draft workout. Tonight, he had watched an entire half, and he knew there was no need to see more.
Durant was the real deal. But TTU’s No. 1 was like a brilliant, radiant gemstone drawing the Logo's eyes.
He resisted that magnetic pull, yet something deep down compelled him to stay and keep watching.
In the distance, Celtics general manager Danny Ainge had already walked out of the arena, having evidently seen enough.
*Why am I still here?*
West kept his thoughts to himself as the second half got underway.
Head coach Rick Barnes had clearly delivered some fiery words in the Longhorns' locker room. From the opening whistle of the second half, Texas adopted a fundamentally different posture.
They stopped casually walking the ball up the floor just to dump it off to Durant, committing instead to rigid tactical discipline.
Point guard D. J. Augustin became the primary offensive engine. Using his compact, lightning-quick frame and blistering speed, he ran relentless pick-and-rolls with his frontcourt bigs. On Texas’s very first possession, Augustin drove off a screen straight into the lane, baiting Xu Ling into shading over for help defense. In that split second, Augustin whipped a pinpoint bounce pass to a cutting Damion James, who laid it in with ease.
It was an unmistakable statement: the Longhorns were no longer letting Durant's isolation sets dictate their offense.
On the next trip down, they ran the exact same play. Augustin penetrated, collapsing Texas Tech’s defense once more. This time, he kicked the ball out to Justin Mason waiting in the corner. Mason didn't hesitate, knocking down a clean three-pointer.
In less than sixty seconds into the second half, the Longhorns had seized the lead through pure team basketball!
Those consecutive scores poured cold water over the fiery atmosphere inside the United Spirit Arena. Texas Tech’s defense began to hesitate. They could no longer afford to double-team or collapse recklessly on Durant and Augustin as they had in the first half, because Texas’s role players had proven they could punish open looks. That, in turn, opened up precious breathing room for Durant. He no longer had to face the toughest coverage on every single touch; he could work off the ball, leveraging his teammates’ gravity to hunt mismatches or step into rhythm catch-and-shoot jumpers. He had room to breathe, and the freedom to choose his spots.
Bob Knight paced the sideline, barking furiously at his players over their breakdown in defensive communication. Yet he showed no panic, instantly making targeted adjustments.
He didn't reassign Xu Ling to chase Augustin or fly out to perimeter shooters. He understood that neutralizing the opponent's trump card was paramount, and that everything Texas was doing was designed to liberate Durant from Xu Ling’s suffocating grip.
Knight barked a direct order to Xu Ling: "Stay glued to Durant! Don't you dare let him go!"
Furthermore, Texas Tech didn't immediately demand that Xu Ling answer with individual scoring. Instead, they utilized him as a tactical hub and an off-ball decoy.
Knight called for Xu Ling to receive the ball at the high post elbow. Durant braced himself, ready to defend a one-on-one drive. But upon catching the pass, Xu Ling merely gave a shoulder fake before slipping a handoff to Martin Zeno, who curled off a double baseline screen. Zeno took the shot in stride, with Durant’s help contest arriving a beat too late after being occupied by Xu Ling.
*Swish!*
Texas Tech promptly reclaimed the lead!
On the following possession, the Longhorns looked for Augustin to drive and kick again, but penetration didn't yield gold every time. This time, they turned the ball over.
Back on offense for Texas Tech, Xu Ling faked a move toward the weak side before executing a sharp backdoor cut toward the rim. At the exact same moment, point guard Darryl Dora threaded a pass over multiple defenders right into Xu Ling’s hands. Durant was left trailing by half a step, helpless as Xu Ling absorbed contact in midair and finished a sweet reverse layup.
That established the rhythm of the second half: Texas relied on collective teamwork to unburden Durant, while the Red Raiders ran their offense through Xu Ling, keeping the screws tight on Durant at both ends.
Five minutes ticked away. The score oscillated like two predators locked by the throat—ties and lead changes traded back and forth, neither side able to land a knockout punch.
With the shot clock winding down on another Texas possession, a series of frantic passes inevitably returned the ball to Durant at the top of the key.
Xu Ling stuck to him like a shadow, arms spread wide, knees bent low, offering neither driving lanes nor shooting space.
Left with no other option, Durant tapped into his extraordinary gifts. Leaning back at an extreme angle and almost completely losing his balance, he elevated over Xu Ling’s fully extended hand in his face, releasing a towering fadeaway.
*Clank... swish!*
The ball grazed the front iron and bounced fortuitously through the net.
Texas was back in front.
Durant came down hard, stumbling a step before regaining his footing. The lucky bounce brought him no joy; instead, it ignited the frustration and shame smoldering inside him all night. The suffocating feeling of being held in check, the bitter contrast of watching his rival thrive while he struggled, and the sheer humiliation of barely scraping by on that possession—all of it overwhelmed his composure.
Glaring at Xu Ling as he landed, Durant barked out raw trash talk: "You see that?! You can't fucking stop me! No matter how hard you try, keep chasing me like a mad dog!"
Xu Ling said nothing, merely staring back with an impassive look. He had seen that look of emotional unraveling before.
Unfortunately, he had seen it in an adult movie—the Italian Stallion Rocco Siffredi had pushed his costar to the absolute brink, reducing her to desperate pleas, only for Rocco to slap her and say, "That's not the safe word!"
That was Durant right now.
He was a generational prodigy whose head rested in the clouds. If not for Greg Oden standing in his way, he was a lock for the No. 1 overall pick. No matter how humble he seemed on the surface, how could someone like that stomach being thoroughly outplayed by a dark horse who had only recently burst onto the scene?
The humiliation and frustration were enough to warp anyone's psyche.
Xu Ling raised his hand for the ball on the right wing.
As soon as he caught it, his teammates cleared out the entire side.
"Space it out! Let him work!" Knight bellowed from the sideline.
Squaring up against Durant, Xu Ling assumed a triple-threat stance. Durant held his breath, every nerve taut.
Xu Ling suddenly ripped through to his right with a lightning-quick first step. Snatching half a step of space, he immediately lowered his shoulder into Durant’s body, muscling his way toward the basket! Durant tried to contest with his tremendous reach, but Xu Ling absorbed the contact, went straight up, hung in the air just long enough to alter his release, and flipped in a gentle right-handed layup.
Jogging back on defense, Xu Ling passed Durant, whispering in a calm tone that cut to the bone: "Keep going. I'm waiting for your next lucky bounce."
His temper boiling over, Durant demanded the ball and immediately launched a contested pull-up three.
*Clang!*
"Is that all you've got?" Xu Ling asked.
"Shut the hell up!" Durant snarled.
Moments later, Xu Ling received the ball in the exact same spot.
This time, Durant pressed up tighter, terrified of another blow-by. Sensing his opponent's anxiety, Xu Ling strung together several rapid between-the-legs dribbles, shifting tempos before flashing a sudden shot fake. Fearing the drive, Durant’s center of gravity hitched upward.
In that split second, Xu Ling gathered and rose into a pull-up jumper, fluid and completely unhurried.
*Swish!*
Glancing at Durant’s contorted face, Xu Ling asked mildly, "Now tell me, who looks more like a barking dog that can't do a damn thing?"
Durant didn't call for the ball on the next trip. But after several possessions of isolation, his teammates struggled to regain the cohesive offensive flow they had shown to open the half. Their half-court execution sputtered, ending in another miss. Texas Tech pushed the break relentlessly—three lanes filled, Martin Zeno kicked ahead to Xu Ling, who whipped it to Jarrius Jackson. The team captain buried a transition three, finally breaking the deadlock and widening the margin to six points.
The Red Raiders clung to that six-point cushion. Coming out of a timeout, Texas ratcheted up its defensive intensity, causing both teams' shooting percentages to plummet.
The physicality quickly exceeded the bounds of a normal conference game, taking on the desperate intensity of the final minutes of a March Madness tournament matchup. Every bump felt like a grappling contest, punctuated by the thud of colliding bodies and the tearing sound of gripped jerseys. Positioning under the glass turned into hand-to-hand combat, where elbows, shoulders, and chests were wielded as weapons for space.
The lead didn't grow, but neither did it shrink, hovering stubbornly around six points. In the final minutes, the basketball felt like a ton of lead in players' hands, resulting in a string of clanked jumpers, turnovers, and airballs.
With eighty seconds remaining, it seemed that as long as Texas Tech protected the ball, victory was assured.
On the Longhorns' attack, multiple passes failed to crack the defense. With fewer than five seconds on the shot clock, the ball was forced back into the hands of D. J. Augustin at the top of the key. Facing TTU's perimeter stopper with time running out, Augustin made a razor-sharp crossover fake, created a sliver of daylight, and hoisted a deep three a full step beyond the arc without a trace of hesitation! Leaning back, he seemed to pour every ounce of strength into the heave!
*Swish!*
80–77!
"D. J. Augustin! He knocks it down! Good grief, the Longhorns are still alive! It’s down to three!"
The pressure swung back onto Texas Tech in an instant.
Only forty-five seconds remained in regulation.
Knight called a timeout, designing a conservative set designed to bleed the clock and hunt the highest-percentage look available.
Play resumed with Texas Tech inbounding in the frontcourt.
The ball reached Xu Ling cleanly. He controlled the tempo calmly, scanning his teammates' movements.
He managed to bleed the shot clock down to roughly ten seconds before initiating the set.
Suddenly exploding toward the top of the key, Xu Ling executed a dribble handoff with Jarrius Jackson.
After handing it off, Xu Ling quickly flared out to the wing to drag his defender away and give Jackson room to attack.
Jackson, however, found no space under intense ball pressure. His dribble grew hesitant, and the Longhorns' rotations closed off every lane to drive or shoot.
With the shot clock gasping for air, Jackson had no choice but to fire a panic pass back toward Xu Ling drifting toward the corner.
It was a reckless pass. Xu Ling was on the move, and Durant had anticipated the trajectory, lunging forward with all his length!
In the blink of an eye, the ball grazed Xu Ling’s fingertips and tumbled out of bounds!
*Whistle!*
The official signaled Texas ball on the baseline.
A disastrous turnover! Change of possession!
A collective gasp and chorus of groans echoed through the United Spirit Arena, while the Longhorns saw a miracle lifeline!
Jarrius Jackson clutched his head in anguish. Xu Ling remained stone-faced. It was undeniably a costly, critical mistake, stemming largely from the lack of unspoken chemistry between him and Jackson; neither fully knew where the other preferred to receive the ball under pressure.
Yet the game wasn't over.
Only twenty-five seconds remained on the clock.
Texas had possession, with a golden opportunity to tie the game.
Rick Barnes burned his final timeout to draw up the most crucial play of the night.
TTU still held a three-point lead.
Scribbling fiercely on his clipboard, Knight barked out instructions before looking up: "They’re probably going to Kevin Durant to finish this. Eli, everything tonight is riding on your shoulders! Get this stop, and we win!"
Xu Ling said, "Coach, you really have a knack for putting pressure on me at the worst possible times."
"Cut the crap!" Knight roared. "Get out there!"
The game clock ticked away like sand slipping through an hourglass, draining hope from the Longhorns with every fraction of a second. Texas ran a remarkably patient set, but their rhythm was repeatedly stifled by Texas Tech’s suffocating defense. The seconds melted away, and panic began to grip the Longhorns' bench.
With the shot clock about to expire amid frantic scrambling, D. J. Augustin somehow corralled a loose ball and, in pure desperation, found Durant blanketed by Xu Ling.
Durant practically caught the ball stumbling a step beyond the arc. The instant his hands touched leather, Xu Ling was already draped all over him like a phantom, denying him an inch of room.
The entire arena rose to its feet.
Time was out.
Durant unleashed a violent crossover. Xu Ling’s lateral slide was instantaneous, cutting off the angle cleanly. Durant instinctively stepped back, but Xu Ling shadowed him step-for-step, his long arms suffocating Durant’s field of vision.
Tactics were gone. All that remained was pure, raw instinct.
With barely six seconds left, the consensus superstar was backed into a corner and reached for the most unreasonable answer imaginable. Leaning into Xu Ling, he drifted backward, his torso tilting nearly parallel to the hardwood. Relying on sheer core strength and touch, he launched the ball skyward toward the rim!
The arc was preposterously high, as if trying to scrape the arena roof.
Xu Ling’s contest was flawless, his fingertips practically brushing the bottom of the leather. But this shot had nothing to do with defense—it belonged to destiny.
"God bless America!" someone shrieked at the top of their lungs from the sideline.
Knight clamped his jaw shut, the pounding of his own heart ringing in his ears.
*Swish!*
80–80!
Durant, against all odds, had buried the game-tying shot!
Durant landed heavily, barely stumbling before stepping forcefully forward, right into the face of his defender. An entire night of suffocation, an entire night of humiliation, all burst forth in a wave of euphoric fury as he screamed at the top of his lungs: "You see that?! You can't stop me! Not ever!!"
The Longhorns' bench erupted into pandemonium, players rushing the floor as though clawing their way out of hell.
Only 4.8 seconds remained on the clock.
Texas Tech had one last chance.
Knight instinctively turned toward the scorer’s table to call a timeout and set up an inbound play from the sideline.
Yet the moment he stepped forward, he caught sight of Xu Ling.
Xu Ling didn't spare a glance for Durant roaring in his face, nor did he display any frustration or panic. He didn't even wait for Knight's signal. He raced straight to the baseline, practically snatching the ball from the referee’s hands, before doing something that froze the entire arena—and Knight himself—in place.
He didn't inbound the ball immediately. Clutching it in one hand out of bounds, he glanced calmly up at the scoreboard clock, then flashed a sharp hand gesture at Knight: *No timeout!*
In the next instant, he flipped the ball to Darryl Dora standing out of bounds and stepped onto the court.
4.8 seconds.
The deafening roar of the arena seemed to vanish from his world. No shouting, no panic. As routinely as if running a drill in practice, Xu Ling turned to receive the inbound pass from Dora, pushing the ball up the court with an almost leisurely grace.
"What is he doing?!" Texas coach Rick Barnes screamed in terror. "Get on him! Slow him down!"
The two nearest Longhorn defenders snapped out of their trance, lunging forward to wall him off.
Yet Xu Ling never broke stride. With a silky behind-the-back dribble coupled with a stutter-step change of pace, he slipped through the gap of the double-team like an eel, the entire motion effortless, without squandering a single tenth of a second.
Two seconds clicked off. He glided smoothly across the center-court logo.
Kevin Durant, the hero who had just tied the game, had scrambled back on defense. Spreading his freakishly long arms, he loomed at the three-point arc like a suddenly erected wall of sorrow.
The final second arrived.
Xu Ling didn't slow down, nor did he try to drive. Two full strides behind the three-point line—nearly thirty feet out—he planted his feet, gathered the ball, and elevated into the air as though he had rehearsed the exact motion ten thousand times!
The range was absurd, reckless, insane—so preposterous that courtside, Jerry West’s pupils dilated instantly.
Durant leaped with everything he had, his outstretched hand clawing at the air, but the contest was futile. Xu Ling’s elevation and lightning release looked nothing like those of a player who had just endured forty minutes of brutal physical warfare.
The instant the ball left his fingertips, the final buzzer tore through the building.
The basketball traced a towering, majestic rainbow across the air, carrying the weight of every heartbeat in a flight that felt like an eternity.
"Oh my goodness! Eli Xu—he puts it up! From way downtown! At least thirty feet out!" Dan Shulman’s voice cracked in disbelief. "Time has expired—and the ball is still in the air! Still in the air—!"
*SWISH!*
A sound cleaner, sharper, and far more lethal than Durant’s earlier heave ripped through the cords!
"HE HIT IT! IT'S IN! AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, YOU ARE WATCHING HISTORY! A BUZZER-BEATING GAME-WINNER FOR THE RED RAIDERS! Eli Xu answers Kevin Durant's game-tying shot with an unbelievable miracle from deep to win it! He slays the Longhorns and Durant! AN UNBELIEVABLE FINISH!"
The arena hung suspended in a split second of absolute silence, before being swallowed whole by an explosion from the TTU bench and the thunderous roar of the crowd.
***
*"Starting today, Eli Xu is a name the basketball world can no longer ignore."*
—Associated Press, Jim Litke, January 16, 2007
*"Texas is blessed to have a once-in-a-decade phenomenon in Kevin Durant, but tonight belonged to Texas Tech’s Eli Xu."*
—ESPN, Andy Katz, January 16, 2007
*"If you haven’t put Eli Xu on your lottery board yet, you're guilty of professional malpractice."*
—Sports Illustrated, Grant Wahl, January 16, 2007
*"The final gem Bob Knight unearthed has arrived like a shooting star. Eli Xu’s logo shot buzzer-beater has sent shockwaves through college basketball."*
—Fox Sports, Jeff Goodman, January 16, 2007
*"When Kevin Durant backed Texas Tech against the wall, the young man from China pulled the trigger without blinking."*
—CBS Sports, Greg Anthony, January 16, 2007
*Excerpt from CBS Sports:* "Eli Xu didn’t make Durant 'lose the game.' He simply demanded absolute perfection from a generational talent, knowing that anything less would result in a lethal counterstrike. Durant played like a No. 1 overall pick, but Eli waited for that final slip to deliver the knockout blow. That kind of poise requires both extraordinary basketball IQ and ice-cold touch, and he has both in spades."
***
When Xu Ling finally untangled himself from his teammates' wild celebrations and walked over to his coach like a bruised survivor of a mobbing, what greeted him was not praise—at least not at first.
Knight gritted his teeth and snarled, "If you ever wave off my timeout in the clutch and jack up an idiotic shot like that again, I will personally murder you!"
Xu Ling nodded serenely.
"That said," Knight suddenly broke into a grin, "I have to admit... that was one hell of a damn shot! Great work, kid."
Chapter 20