After defeating Duke, the March Madness tournament entered a six-day break.
In six days, Texas Tech would make their push for the Elite Eight. Their opponent in this round was the University of Pittsburgh, a defensive team built around seven-foot center Aaron Gray. However, they were far from the talent-laden powerhouse Duke had been.
A feverish excitement swept across the Texas Tech campus as well. When the student body learned that the team had made the Sweet Sixteen, the campus bell tower was illuminated in red through the night. Thousands of students gathered spontaneously around the fountain plaza in front of the administration building, chanting, "TTU! TTU!"
Overnight, the president's office hung a massive banner across the main campus boulevard: "PRIDE OF THE RED RAIDERS!"
Students used red paint to cover Alumni Boulevard with celebratory slogans, and someone even spray-painted the team's mascot—a red steed—onto the front steps of the library. The campus dining halls rolled out special "Sweet Sixteen" red velvet cakes, which sold out in under two hours.
The basketball players had become campus celebrities, and the disruptions to Xu Ling's daily life were particularly intense.
Almost everyone in his classes bought his jersey and asked for an autograph. Whether motivated by genuine admiration or not, they knew that if he made a name for himself in the NBA, those signed jerseys would multiply in value several times over.
Since they were his classmates, Xu Ling couldn't really refuse. Off the court, he was a friendly guy after all.
Outside the classroom, however, the attention began to border on ridiculous.
Every media outlet in Texas wanted a piece of him, but Bob Knight shielded him from all of them.
Sponsors approached the university offering hefty sums, wanting nothing more than for Xu Ling to publicly endorse and use their products.
Xu Ling naturally refused, as that would amount to doing unpaid labor for the university.
What proved most exasperating were the constant pickup attempts that could happen at any moment.
Three girls who had "accidentally bumped into" Xu Ling outside the arena on three separate occasions asked him to sign their collarbones.
The student center was ground zero. Whenever Xu Ling showed up there to grab a bite, girls would invariably "accidentally" spill a drink or "just happen" to have bought an extra coffee. Anna, a psychology major, even orchestrated an elaborate plea for "academic help"—approaching him with a basketball whiteboard completely outside her field of study to ask for guidance.
Things like this had already begun trickling in when he first made a name for himself, but now that he was the university's athletic hero, it was spiraling completely out of hand.
The craze even spilled into the lecture halls. During a lecture on "The Celebrity Effect and Brand Value," an economics professor used Xu Ling as a case study, jokingly asking the entire class to assess the commercial potential of the name "Eli Xu." The classroom erupted into laughter, leaving Xu Ling, sitting in the back row, with no choice but to duck his head and pretend to take notes.
To make matters even wilder, the campus bookstore quickly released limited-edition T-shirts printed with "From Lubbock to Glory!" and Xu Ling's signature No. 1, which flew off the shelves as soon as they stocked them. The campus was practically drowning in a sea of red.
Whenever he vented his frustrations to his teammates, they teased him for being dense.
"Come on, Eli!" Darryl Dora draped an arm around his neck after practice, grinning ear to ear. "Do you have any idea how many guys would kill to have your kind of 'problems'? Those are hot girls! If you can't handle it all, I'd be more than happy to take some off your hands!"
"And have both of us end up on the front page of the tabloids the next morning?" Xu Ling shoved him away with a dry scowl. "Headline: 'TTU Twin Stars Party Late, March Madness Hopes in Jeopardy'? Thanks, but I'll pass. I'll handle it myself."
Even the usually solemn Jarrius Jackson chimed in: "Eli, maybe this is God testing you. He blessed you with unmatched talent, so naturally He expects you to bear the attention that comes with it. Learning to navigate it is part of growing up."
"I just wish His tests weren't quite so... enthusiastic," Xu Ling sighed.
The off-court noise eventually reached Bob Knight's ears. Before one practice session, he pulled Xu Ling aside.
"Listen up, kid," Knight said. "I've seen countless phenoms ruined by fame. They get surrounded by cheers, sycophants, and women, and then they're like flies trapped in flypaper—never able to take off again. Right now, all that crap is coming for you."
He locked eyes with Xu Ling. "Autographs, girls, TV cameras... they'll try like hell to turn you into just another 'celebrity' instead of a 'winner.' But let me tell you something: inside this gym, only one identity matters, and that's a 'ballplayer.' If you let any of that garbage occupy an inch of your mind, your feet will slow down by a second—and one second is all it takes to fall from heaven straight into hell!
"Shut every bit of it out! If I catch your eyes wandering or notice an ounce of slack in practice, I'll be the first to dump you into a tub of ice water to wake you up! You hear me?"
"Loud and clear."
There could only be one bastard at Texas Tech, and that was the coach himself. Simple enough.
"It better be!" Knight glared at him, then turned and blew his whistle to gather the team.
With the off-court distractions dealt with, Xu Ling redirected his full focus to the basketball court.
The next day, Texas Tech flew to California.
The third round of the national tournament took place at HP Pavilion at San Jose, a multipurpose arena capable of seating twenty thousand spectators. A massive crowd packed the stands for game day.
"It might not be entirely fair to Pitt, but I have to say, at least fifteen thousand people here showed up for TTU's Number 1," one commentator remarked.
"That's right. Eli has become one of the brightest stars in all of college basketball!" the other agreed.
Aaron Gray, Pittsburgh's centerpiece center, paced along the court.
Xu Ling's first impression was that the name sounded vaguely familiar, but the man had clearly never made huge waves—probably one of those guys who lasted a few years in the NBA as a journeyman.
And just as the coaching staff had broken down before the game, Gray's athleticism appeared extremely limited.
Even watching him during pregame warmups made that abundantly clear.
Rarely did a team encounter an opponent with so little depth at the Sweet Sixteen stage; Texas Tech was determined to march past them and achieve the best tournament result in school history.
"Today, we run like Forrest Gump!" Knight barked. "Run, boys! As long as you push the pace, you'll leave them in the dust!"
Once the game tipped off, however, momentum didn't immediately swing Texas Tech's way.
Pittsburgh knew TTU wanted to push the tempo.
Every opponent they faced tried to play that way, and they knew how to counter it.
It boiled down to staying poised, staying patient, and waiting for the other side to make mistakes.
The Red Raiders, just like previous teams that had fallen to Pittsburgh, committed the sin of rushing things in search of a quick kill. Too eager to blow the game open from the perimeter and overly wary of Gray's rim protection, they ended up clanking shots, which allowed Pittsburgh to capitalize on the rebounds and execute successive fast breaks.
Xu Ling's scorching hand uncharacteristically cooled off as he missed his first two shots, and the cold spell from their primary scorer seemed contagious.
Pittsburgh raced out to a 10–3 start.
Texas Tech called a timeout.
Knight jabbed his marker toward the opposing paint. "Attack him inside! Stop hunting threes thinking you can end this in one shot—it doesn't work that way! If they folded that easily, they wouldn't have made it this far! Eli, take the ball and drive right at him! Don't tell me he's too tall—if you can't even handle Aaron Gray, how am I supposed to expect you to go at Greg Oden?!"
Truth be told, even without Knight's barking, Xu Ling would have started attacking the basket off the dribble after missing those perimeter shots.
Putting a lumbering big through the meat grinder on switches was a quintessential staple of the small-ball era.
Since Knight had given the green light, Xu Ling was more than ready to cut loose and make Aaron Gray's life a living nightmare.
Coming out of the timeout, the contest reached its turning point.
While watching Gray during warmups, Xu Ling had already noticed that the big man had heavy feet. Gray wasn't clumsy—for his size, his footwork, touch, and passing vision were solid—but his lateral mobility lagged far behind his instincts.
Xu Ling had the ball at the top of the key. Facing the perimeter guard, a series of crossover dribbles sent the defender's feet scrambling. Just as the guard overcommitted, Xu Ling exploded left, stopped on a dime, snaked the ball between his legs to his right hand, and side-stepped to the right.
It unfolded in the blink of an eye, and Gray, rotating over to help, was a beat slow. His hulking frame was like a brick wall, but walls don't move quickly. Xu Ling seized that fleeting sliver of space, slipping past Gray toward the rim. Gray reached out with his long arms in a desperate bid to contest, but swiped only empty air. Xu Ling elevated, hung in the air, and finished with a gorgeous reverse layup off the glass.
Pittsburgh tried to answer, but their hurried possession ended in a brick, triggering an immediate Texas Tech transition.
Xu Ling gathered the outlet pass and pushed the break. His ability to read the floor in transition had grown by leaps and bounds; the moment he crossed half court, he whipped a pass to Jarrius Jackson.
Jackson cut into the paint and laid it in.
As they retreated on defense, Knight waited along the sideline to high-five Xu Ling. "Not enough, Eli! That's nowhere near enough!"
Hearing that, Xu Ling knew he had no choice but to take Aaron Gray to school until the lesson really sank in.
As Texas Tech found its groove, everyone in the arena could plainly see the tactical mismatch between the two teams.
Texas Tech was arguably the worst possible matchup for Pittsburgh in the entire March Madness tournament.
Apart from Darryl Dora, four of their five starters could step outside and drain threes, forming a four-out spacing lineup that was exceedingly rare for this era.
On defense, Xu Ling acted as a roaming sweeper, plugging TTU's biggest vulnerabilities.
Once Pittsburgh lost their offensive consistency, they were greeted by a whirlwind of fast-break counterpunches.
Even when Pittsburgh converted in the half court using their size advantage, Gray was made to suffer on the other end.
Xu Ling repeatedly called for pick-and-rolls to hunt Gray on switches. Pittsburgh tried having their power forward hedge and protect him, but Xu Ling reset the angle and called for another screen, forcing Gray into the action. With nowhere left to hide, Gray had no choice but to gamble on Xu Ling's jumper, retreating deep into drop coverage in the paint.
Xu Ling drove hard to the free throw line with a single explosive bounce and elevated, burying a pull-up jumper right over Gray's outstretched hand.
That shot put Texas Tech ahead.
It also marked the start of TTU's complete takeover.
Once Xu Ling caught fire, Texas Tech's perimeter shooters woke up. Jarrius Jackson drained their first three-pointer of the game, Martin Zeno followed with a second, and Xu Ling stepped into a transition pull-up three of his own.
The lead ballooned in a hurry.
Pittsburgh could only muster the occasional token resistance.
"Pittsburgh's valiant efforts are, in the end, an exercise in futility!" ESPN college basketball analyst Andy Katz scribbled furiously into his courtside notepad. "Texas Tech is like the NCAA's version of the Phoenix Suns, but without an alien floor general like Steve Nash. This is a Suns team built around Kobe Bryant, and their dynamic offense has torn through yet another March Madness heavyweight. Who can stop them? North Carolina? Does Brandan Wright still remember what he said to Eli? Does Eli remember? How will we ultimately remember this year's Red Raiders? Has Bob Knight already drawn up a whole playbook for Roy Williams? All the answers will be revealed in forty-eight hours."
Chapter 34