The first half couldn't have gone better for Texas Tech.
They had achieved virtually every pre-game objective. Xu Ling thoroughly stifled Brandon Rush on both ends, and unlike in their first clash with the University of Kansas, he was no longer fighting a lone war.
Bob Knight had dialed up an array of plays to keep the ball in Xu Ling's hands. His overwhelming gravity drew the bulk of Kansas's defensive attention, yet Xu Ling kept a cool head throughout—attacking whenever an opening appeared and kicking it out when it closed. Jarrius Jackson, Martin Zeno, and the rest quickly found their groove, dealing damage both with perimeter jumpers and aggressive drives to the basket.
Even Texas Tech's frontcourt, Knight's biggest concern going in, had shaken off its shaky start. Inspired and rallied by Xu Ling, they put on a stellar showing. In contrast, Kansas was all raw talent with nowhere to channel it.
By halftime, the Red Raiders held a 44–36 lead—an eight-point cushion.
Xu Ling's portrait flashed on the jumbotron alongside his halftime stat line: 14 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block.
"Greg Oden is the most gifted freshman, Kevin Durant is the most explosive offensive freshman, but Eli..." Dick Vitale raved, offering glowing praise. "He is the most impactful two-way freshman in the country! In this first half, he's haunted the Jayhawks like a ghost! He's scoring, he's defending, he's orchestrating—good heavens, he's even battling inside for boards! The kid is everywhere!"
Back in the locker room, Knight praised everyone's performance, but didn't miss the chance to inoculate them against complacency. "We still have a whole second half—twenty full minutes of basketball! We have to hold this lead to the final buzzer. If we blow it in the second half, whatever we did in the first won't mean a damn thing! Keep making the right plays, and keep your heads!"
Knight rattled off all the usual coaching platitudes. But while he was busy ladling out motivational soup, he forgot to remind himself that he was the most prone to flying off the handle in all of TTU.
Just minutes into the second half, the game's rhythm took a noticeable turn.
The referees' whistles began blowing with relentless frequency, proving especially "sensitive" whenever Texas Tech played defense. Physical contact that had gone uncalled throughout the first half was suddenly being whistled. The Red Raiders had to pull their punches, afraid to contest too tightly, and their pace bogged down.
Sensing the shift, Kansas adjusted immediately, repeatedly driving inside to draw fouls and earn trips to the charity stripe. In short order, they cut the deficit from eight down to four, forcing Knight into an early timeout.
Coming out of the break, Texas Tech looked to pick up the tempo, but trouble followed.
Pushing the ball quickly up the floor, Xu Ling executed a dazzling spin move to blow past his man. Just as he accelerated toward the cup, Brandon Rush reached out from behind and yanked his right arm. It was a glaring hack, plain as day to every spectator in the arena.
Yet no whistle blew.
Thrown off balance, Xu Ling touched the ball out of bounds, and the referee impassively signaled Kansas ball.
A chorus of boos erupted across the arena. Over on the broadcast table, even Dick Vitale couldn't help but frown. "Whoa, now... I have to say, if that isn't a foul, we might need to redefine what 'physical contact' actually means."
On the sideline, Knight lost his mind completely.
He stormed toward the edge of the court, arms flailing, his voice raw and hoarse. "Are your goddamn eyes even open?! He dragged him down! That's a foul! That's a fucking foul!"
Xu Ling had already moved forward to restrain the raging old coach, but he was a beat too slow.
Knight's fury escalated with every syllable as he pointed straight at the referee who blew the call, roaring, "Joseph Morris, I've put up with your crap for over a decade! Why don't you do everyone a favor and just quit?!"
Naturally, no official was going to swallow that kind of insult.
Knight's explosion didn't earn his team any favors; instead, the referee flashed basketball's equivalent of a yellow card and assessed him a technical foul.
"You son of a—!"
Xu Ling stepped directly in Knight's path.
"Let go of me!" Knight hollered. "I'm gonna teach that bastard how to blow a whistle!"
Xu Ling dared not imagine what would happen if he actually let go.
Fortunately, Knight's assistants rushed over and hauled him back.
Kansas was awarded two technical free throws. Brandon Rush stepped to the line and knocked down both, trimming the margin to 44–42.
By rule, possession remained with Texas Tech.
The referee signaled for an inbound along the baseline, and play resumed.
Yet the atmosphere had shifted.
Though they hadn't lost the ball, the two gifted points, the head coach's rage, and the unpredictable officiating were quietly eating away at the Red Raiders' rhythm and composure.
Knight stood by the bench, teeth clenched, face grim. Deep down, he knew keeping his temper in check was what the team needed most. But he couldn't stomach watching an advantage they'd fought so hard for slip away just because the refs decided to tilt the floor.
Glaring at the official, Knight muttered to his son, Little Knight, "Pat, you better hold onto me, or I'm gonna run out there and clock that son of a bitch!"
Pat didn't dare ease his grip for a single second.
Out on the hardwood, Xu Ling drew a deep breath. Kansas was riding high on momentum; if they didn't snuff it out fast, the lead would evaporate in a matter of possessions.
Defending the inbound, Mario Chalmers ran his mouth: "You TTU clowns are a few centuries too early to be talking about a Big 12 title!"
*Centuries?*
Xu Ling let out a cold, faint smirk.
The young were the morning sun; they lived for the here and now. Who was going to wait centuries?
Xu Ling took the pass and locked eyes with Brandon Rush. A surge of fire ignited in his chest. In moments of crisis, most teams that suffered comebacks didn't lose their spirit at the moment they fell behind—they surrendered long before the reversal happened, feeling as though defeat were already written.
That was never going to happen to TTU.
"Eli off the dribble... drives... wow! What graceful footwork! He shakes Brandon Rush completely!"
More than that—the instant Xu Ling stormed into the paint, Julian Wright collapsed inside, clearly determined to foul rather than concede a clean bucket.
Feeling his cylinder breached, Xu Ling absorbed the blow and flung the ball toward the rim just as the referee's whistle blew.
Under the gaze of thousands, the ball arced toward the basket, clipped the front iron, bounced once, bounced again, and dropped cleanly through the net.
"And one!"
"Eli again! He steps up in the clutch and steadies his team's morale!"
"Listen to this crowd—they're on their feet!"
"Give 'em a roar, Eli! Can you feel it? The Lone Star State is roaring for you!"
No roar came.
Xu Ling walked calmly to the line, sank the free throw, and hustled back on defense.
The game rolled on, but the sense that Kansas held all the cards was beginning to dissolve into sheer chaos.
Knight bellowed from the sideline, "Stick to the zone! Force them into threes! They can't shoot—they're soft!"
As if to prove Knight's words true, Kansas swung the ball around until Mario Chalmers was forced to launch a contested three.
*Clang!*
The ball kicked long off the rim. Before anyone else could react, Xu Ling was airborne, snagging the long rebound cleanly with his right hand.
"If you want that Big 12 ring, get moving!"
Xu Ling shouted, and his teammates roared back in unison. In just two possessions, the team's spirit surged from a trough straight to its peak.
*That kid...* Knight thought he had grown immune to Xu Ling's maturity beyond his years. Yet watching the freshman rise to the occasion, rally the squad like a seasoned general, and snatch control of the contest right back left him in a momentary daze. *Was he born knowing how to lead men?*
Texas Tech poured down the floor in transition.
Julian Wright picked up Xu Ling out beyond the top of the key.
But TTU had more than one gun in their holster.
Xu Ling whipped a pass to the left wing.
Martin Zeno corralled the ball, drove hard into the paint to collapse the defense, then kicked it back out to Jarrius Jackson, already stationed on the perimeter.
Jackson, whose limelight had been eclipsed by Xu Ling, was once TTU's undisputed alpha.
To opponents, neutralizing Jackson had been the silver bullet to beating Texas Tech.
Now, with Xu Ling commanding the defense's full attention while continuing to produce, Jackson had endured an adjustment period before carving out his true role.
That role was to comfortably slot in beneath the wings of TTU's own Jordan, pouring in every ounce of his talent without hesitation.
Once he embraced that, he was still one of the most lethal perimeter scorers in the nation.
*Swish!*
Jackson buried the three.
The gap widened from two points straight to eight.
Kansas had no choice but to burn a timeout.
A calmed-down Knight gave sharp, precise instructions during the huddle. "Great work, boys! Keep it up! Coming out of this break, they're going to turn up the heat just like the start of the half. Trust me, they'll play even rougher. Don't back down—hit 'em right back! Real men don't fold under pressure. Stick to our defensive scheme, force them into perimeter shots, and control the tempo. As long as the game is played on our terms, they can't do a damn thing!"
Out of the timeout, the game unfolded precisely as Knight had predicted. With their half-court offense gummed up, Kansas's best bet was to ramp up the physicality and disrupt TTU's shooting rhythm.
If Texas Tech's shooting dipped, Kansas could unleash their superior athleticism in transition.
Virtually every team loaded with raw talent but short on polish leaned on the same blueprint in such spots.
The pace crawled to a grind. Kansas seemed intent on bleeding every second off the shot clock on each possession.
Yet dragging out possessions didn't mean they were patient.
In truth, their sluggishness was forced upon them by Texas Tech's suffocating defense.
Xu Ling smothered Brandon Rush like a blanket.
As Kansas's primary perimeter scorer, Rush went utterly cold under Xu Ling's watch.
Julian Wright possessed the best raw tools on the floor, but his unpolished skills left him toothless in cramped half-court sets.
In the end, cleaning up the mess fell to Mario Chalmers.
Jackson wasn't an elite defender, but with the zone behind him, his sole concern was contesting the jump shot.
After a flurry of crossovers, Chalmers carved out a sliver of space and sank a buzzer-beating three.
The bucket gave Kansas some breathing room, but Texas Tech's counterpunch landed faster than anticipated.
Knight's sideline tirade at the officials hadn't been entirely in vain.
The whistles had grown noticeably tighter.
With perimeter looks hard to come by against the pressure defense, Xu Ling attacked the rim and drew a foul.
On the ensuing sideline inbound, Xu Ling flashed a textbook hesitation shot fake that bit Rush into the air, then used the timing window to elevate, drawing contact for a tough attempt that missed—putting Rush on the hook for a shooting foul.
In a single sequence, he had drawn two fouls on Rush. That made four team fouls for Kansas in the second half, and four personal fouls on Rush.
"Brandon, watch yourself! You can't pick up another one!" his teammates yelled.
Kansas's coaching staff grew even more frantic. They couldn't afford to bench Rush, but they couldn't risk him fouling out either, so they swapped defensive assignments, putting Julian Wright on Xu Ling.
"Ju-Ju!" Chalmers barked, using Wright's nickname. "Show this freshman punk where he belongs!"
Xu Ling smiled coolly. "Why don't you come do it yourself?"
Chalmers talked tough: "You ain't worth my time!"
Shooting nearly ninety percent from the stripe on the season, Xu Ling calmly drained both free throws.
What followed was a two-minute scoring drought. Kansas clanked several contested half-court looks, while Xu Ling missed a catch-and-shoot jumper off a set screen and Darryl Dora failed to convert an inside put-back.
The grueling standoff chipped away at everyone's nerves.
Taking a deep breath, Chalmers called for a pick-and-roll, drawing Xu Ling on the switch. It wasn't the matchup he wanted, but the switch meant Jackson—TTU's weakest link on defense—was left matched up against Wright, the most athletic player on the floor.
Chalmers' desire to feed the ball inside was written all over his face. His intention was so blatant that fans near the sideline began shouting, "Eli, don't let him get it to Wright!"
Xu Ling shifted from shadowing him to crowding his airspace. Chalmers looked to make the entry pass, but the passing lane was completely sealed. By the time he was forced to pick up his dribble, he had wandered straight into a dead end.
He glanced frantically left and right, the ball suddenly feeling like a live grenade.
It was precisely that desperation that tipped Xu Ling off. All he needed to do was bait Chalmers with a phantom opening, and Chalmers would lunge for it like a drowning man clutching a straw. The instant Chalmers released the pass, Xu Ling's hand snapped into the lane. He swallowed the ball in a heartbeat, stripping possession cleanly away.
"Eli steals it from Chalmers!"
The arena erupted like a shattered volcano. Eyes bloodshot, Chalmers sprinted back in wild pursuit. But did anyone believe he could stop TTU's No. 1?
Not a single soul.
Not his closest family, not his friends, not even those who still believed in him most in this world—in that moment, nobody believed he could run down that crimson streak of lightning.
"Take it right down his goddamn throat!" Knight pumped a furious fist.
Yet just as Xu Ling reached the three-point line, he slammed on the brakes. Unable to decelerate in time, Chalmers slid out of control like a moped with busted brakes, tumbling awkwardly across the floor.
Xu Ling turned his left palm upward in a shrug, as if to ask, *What kind of manners are those?* Then he gathered the ball and lazily hoisted a transition three.
*Swish!*
"Appreciate the effort," Xu Ling murmured. "Shame I'm not an easy man to please."
Jogging back on defense, Xu Ling was greeted by Knight's thunderous roar from the bench: "You crossed him out of his shoes—why the hell did you settle for a three?! You should've rammed it down the rim! Dunk the damn ball!"
"Coach, if you're allowed to throw a tantrum and pick a fight with the refs, why can't I indulge myself with a three?" Xu Ling tossed back nonchalantly. "Besides, it went in."
Knight froze on the spot. Once Xu Ling was well down the floor, he turned to his assistants and grumbled, "I really hate that bastard!"
Still, they couldn't live without him.
In terms of game clock, Xu Ling's pull-up three wasn't a dagger.
It extended Texas Tech's lead, but Kansas still had time to mount a push.
Yet in hindsight, it proved to be the turning point of the game.
All of Kansas's woes boiled down to two simple facts: they couldn't crack Xu Ling's defense on one end, and they had no answer for his offense on the other.
Brandon Rush was thoroughly dismantled. Julian Wright's raw game offered little value in structured half-court sets. Without reliable perimeter shooting, Kansas had no hope of puncturing Texas Tech's zone. Blanked on offense and helpless to contain Xu Ling on defense, they unravelled.
A dozen seconds later, Xu Ling drew a double-team and kicked it out to Jackson for another three.
Wright then muscled his way to the rim to draw a foul and earn a trip to the line.
Back at the other end, Kansas's defense overcommitted to Xu Ling, leaving an opening that Martin Zeno exploited with a direct drive to the cup to draw contact.
Time ticked away as the deficit ballooned.
With five minutes remaining on the clock, TTU had stretched their lead to eighteen, all but locking up the contest.
The arena was humming with celebration, yet Xu Ling seemed far from satisfied.
Kansas was already preparing to pull their starters.
Receiving a pass on the perimeter, Xu Ling gave a convincing shot fake that sent Julian Wright flying into the air.
Darrell Arthur rotated over in help defense. Xu Ling launched into the air, his sneakers carving a crisp arc across the hardwood as he spun a full 360 degrees mid-flight, evading Arthur's contest like an aerial dancer.
Lurking beneath the rim, Brandon Rush was like a moth to a flame. Caught off guard by Xu Ling's mid-air maneuver, he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. A harmless bump was all it took to draw his fifth and final foul. Xu Ling's layup, meanwhile, was poetry in motion—the ball kissed the rim, spun gently around the cylinder, and softly dropped home.
"Oh, mama mia! Eli Xu with a play of the year candidate in the final minutes! What a magnificent move! Good heavens, this building has come unglued!"
That breathtaking sequence dropped the guillotine on Kansas.
They pulled their starters from the floor.
And Xu Ling didn't forget his unfinished business.
Giving as good as one got was the truest justice in this world.
As Mario Chalmers trudged toward the bench, Xu Ling strode briskly past, deliberately pausing right in front of him. "Take care. Hope to see you again in March Madness. Though from the looks of it, winning a Big 12 championship doesn't take centuries after all."
Chapter 26