Most of Texas Tech's offense flowed through Xu Ling, while the vast majority of Ohio State's half-court sets began with an entry pass to Greg Oden in the low post.
However, compared to TTU's perimeter-oriented system, Oden's repertoire in the post was actually far from varied.
Over several possessions, Oden's post-ups boiled down to overpowering his defender with sheer size and strength, backing down ruthlessly until the man had no legs left to contest, and then spinning into a sweeping hook shot.
His touch on the hook was relatively soft, but as for the scouts' glowing comparison—the supposed "feel for the game of a young Tim Duncan"—he would have needed at least three more years of college seasoning, just like Duncan, to even come close.
Yet for a generational talent hailed by scouts as someone who could easily have gone No. 1 overall in the 2005, 2006, or 2007 NBA draft, staying an extra year in college was out of the question.
At the collegiate level, Oden's hook shot was virtually unstoppable. Through the first ten minutes of the half, he scored indiscriminately from both the left and right blocks with either hand.
Xu Ling, after opening the contest with a jaw-dropping double step-back three-pointer and following it up with a pull-up jumper out of the pick-and-roll, began making his mark on the defensive end.
Midway through the first half, Ohio State's leading perimeter scorer, Ron Lewis, started getting restless. The shooting guard drifted along the perimeter outside the arc on the left wing, suddenly breaking free with a sharp backdoor cut before calling for the ball—an open look had materialized!
Yet the moment the pass flew toward Lewis, a red flash tore into the passing lane. With uncanny anticipation and the advantage of his long wingspan, Xu Ling intercepted the pass mid-flight!
Before Lewis could even react, Xu Ling scooped up the loose ball, spun around, and ignited the fast break. Across the court, Jarrius Jackson was already in full stride as if connected by instinct, streaking like an arrow down the floor. Without hesitation, Xu Ling fired a pinpoint, full-court pass on a line. Jackson gathered in stride and glided in for an effortless layup!
A few possessions later, Lewis seemed to have wised up. Sealing Xu Ling tightly, he received the entry pass near the free-throw line. Turning and elevating into a textbook stop-and-pop jumper, he never expected his defender to still possess the bounce to contest.
*Smack!*
Xu Ling took flight from the side, swatting the ball cleanly away with an emphatic palm.
"Eli has shut down Ron Lewis on consecutive trips!" Jim Nantz declared. "That is not good news for the Buckeyes! Ron has been their go-to guy on the road to the Final Four, with multiple twenty-point performances in the tournament. If his firepower dries up, OSU's frontcourt is going to feel the squeeze!"
Refusing to back down, Ohio State head coach Thad Matta barked out another set from the sideline, dialing up an isolation play for Ron Lewis.
Lewis squared up against Xu Ling, working a series of crossover dribbles between his legs before suddenly changing direction and bursting forward.
Xu Ling's left hand darted out like a striking viper, slapping the ball cleanly away. As Lewis stumbled forward in a desperate bid to recover, Xu Ling had already secured possession and pushed past mid-court. Once again, it was a one-on-none in the open floor—and this time, Xu Ling pulled off his signature transition pull-up three.
Bob Knight sat numb to it all.
And to the play-by-play call of "Eli's trademark transition triple," Xu Ling tallied his eighth point of the night.
With that bucket, TTU stretched their lead to nine.
It was an outcome nobody had foreseen.
Prior to tip-off, the so-called "college basketball analysts" had racked their brains and failed to fathom how TTU's paper-thin frontcourt could ever hold up against Oden.
TTU's answer was identical to Knight's infamous response from years ago when asked how a coach should handle terrible officiating.
Knight had remarked back then that it was like rape—if you can't fight it off, you might as well stop struggling and enjoy it.
Unsurprisingly, Knight drew fierce backlash from feminist advocates for that remark. But unlike the performative hypocrites who feigned decency, Knight never bothered hiding his toxic masculinity. He was an unabashed, unrepentant chauvinist through and through—an attitude that had directly ruined his first marriage. His response to that fallout? Trading in a menopausal wife was nothing short of a blessing.
That same philosophy defined TTU's approach to Oden tonight.
Apart from occasional harassment from Xu Ling rotating into the paint, they largely let Oden have his way.
In Knight's eyes, smothering Ohio State's perimeter was the sole key to winning this ballgame.
Coming out of the timeout, Ron Lewis remained on the floor.
In truth, Ohio State, much like TTU, lacked formidable depth.
Even with Lewis visibly struggling, they had no viable alternatives off the bench. They had to keep him out there, though the focal point of the offense shifted even more heavily inside.
Oden had to shoulder an even greater burden.
Yet Ohio State did not bet every single chip on Oden alone.
Mike Conley, quiet for much of the half, began to come alive.
A gifted point guard who, like Oden, was destined to be a lottery pick in this year's draft, Conley shredded Jarrius Jackson's defense off the bounce through pure individual skill. Jackson's teammates had grown thoroughly accustomed to seeing it.
You couldn't really blame Jackson; his defense was simply what it was.
Knight had never learned to "enjoy" that particular deficiency, but tonight, he spared Jackson any harsh rebukes.
After Conley converted a driving layup, Jackson answered right back on the other end, using Xu Ling's drive-and-kick to find space and burying a clean catch-and-shoot jumper.
The game devolved into a grueling war of attrition.
Through the latter half of the first period, Texas Tech struggled to extend their lead, while Ohio State, hampered by cold shooting and Ron Lewis being completely neutralized, could not establish an inside-out rhythm. Although Greg Oden remained an absolute force down low, scoring at will inside TTU's paint, he couldn't guarantee a basket on every possession. More importantly, the ceaseless post battles were taking a heavy toll on his stamina.
On the final possession of the half, Xu Ling suddenly switched onto Mike Conley.
The moment Conley faced Xu Ling at the top of the key, his normally unflappable eyes betrayed a flicker of tension. Lowering his center of gravity, he unleashed a flurry of rapid crossover dribbles between his legs, trying to use hesitation moves to puncture the perimeter. Yet Xu Ling's defense stood immovable, flawlessly disciplined, staying glued to his driving lane.
With the shot clock winding down, Oden stepped up for a rare slip screen. Conley seized the split-second crease to slash toward the paint, but Xu Ling anticipated the maneuver, smoothly spinning around the pick and shadowing him step for step. As Conley leaped toward the rim, he could feel the stifling pressure right behind him.
Xu Ling's long arms completely blanketed Conley's sightline, and the forced layup clanged off the front iron—though it hardly mattered.
Trailing the play, Oden was already coiled to strike. Leaping like an awakened prehistoric titan, he clamped both massive hands onto the bouncing rebound. When his forehead rose nearly level with the rim, the entire arena gasped in unison.
Like an ancient colossus descending from the heavens, Oden ripped down the rebound, rose until his head seemed flush with the iron, and detonated a thunderous two-handed hammer dunk through the cylinder with every ounce of his frame.
This was the embodiment of Dwight Howard's raw power fused with Shaquille O'Neal's sheer explosion.
With five seconds left in the half, Oden's electrifying putback dunk swung the crowd's favor squarely to his side.
Xu Ling had displayed a far more complete skillset, but who could resist the allure of such terrifying, primal athleticism?
"Five seconds! Don't let them across mid-court!" Thad Matta shouted frantically from the sideline.
The deficit was down to three. A three-point margin was nothing, but surrendering a buzzer-beater going into the locker room would be a crushing blow to morale.
Under their coach's orders, Ohio State dialed up a full-court press. Mike Conley lunged like a mad dog at the inbounder, Jarrius Jackson, flailing his arms to disrupt the pass, but the ball cleanly found Xu Ling's hands.
Ron Lewis clamped down immediately, intending to take a foul to halt the advance. To his shock, Xu Ling executed an abrupt between-the-legs stop and violently pushed the ball to the right. Drawn in like metal to a magnet, Lewis lunged—only to clutch empty air. Thrown completely off balance, he thought in sheer despair, *Who the hell gets crossed up twice in a Final Four game?!*
"Eli shakes Ron Lewis again!" the commentator's voice spiked an octave.
Seeing Lewis beaten, Oden charged forward from inside the arc to cut off the lane, the seven-footer closing ground with terrifying speed. Xu Ling didn't decelerate in the slightest. He attacked Oden's momentum head-on, and right before the two collided—
Xu Ling whipped a lightning-fast behind-the-back dribble to his left hand, selling a hard drive to the left. The sheer force of the misdirection made Oden's towering frame hesitate, shifting his weight slightly to his right.
In that flash of daylight, Xu Ling snapped the ball back with his left hand, the leather seemingly glued to his palm, executing a razor-tight Shammgod crossover to slip clean past the right side of Oden's body!
That single move took him entirely past Oden's frontal contest, opening up precious real estate ahead.
Two seconds remained.
Just crossing mid-court, Xu Ling saw open floor in front of him. Without an ounce of hesitation, he pushed the ball out hard and broke into a full-out sprint.
Behind him trailed a thoroughly beaten Oden and a desperately sprinting Conley.
With the clock ticking down to its final second, Xu Ling gathered his dribble two full paces beyond the arc—roughly twenty-eight feet out.
A conventional shot was impossible. There was no time to attack the rim.
Without setting his feet, he swept the ball into his shooting pocket and rode his forward momentum, launching an off-balance running jumper!
His body tilted at nearly a forty-five-degree angle to the floor, yet his formidable core strength kept him balanced in mid-air as he lofted the ball high toward the basket.
The basketball soared in a towering arc, clearing every outstretched finger, tracing an expansive parabola across the dome before cleanly clipping the backboard.
*Bank—swish!*
The red backboard light flared, and the net snapped upward.
The Texas Tech bench erupted into pandemonium, white towels whirling through the air like streamers.
Nearly tumbling from his momentum upon landing, Xu Ling casually glanced at the fallen net, wiped the sweat from his brow, and turned toward the Buckeyes' bench with a deadpan remark: "That full-court press wasn't very pressing."
Thad Matta blew a gasket right there on the sideline, roaring, "This is basketball, not a damn circus!"
At the broadcast desk, Jim Nantz had lost his mind, screaming into his headset, "Oh my goodness! Eli blows by Oden! He loses his balance at full sprint—and he banks in a running buzzer-beater from downtown! We have just witnessed perhaps the wildest, most improbable buzzer-beater in Final Four history!"
The cold numbers on the scoreboard stung Ohio State like a slap to the face: 42 to 36, a six-point deficit.
It was more than just a deficit; it was an absolute humiliation. Who could stomach an outcome like this? After executing near-flawless defensive pressure to pin their opponents against the clock, they had watched that infuriating No. 1 dance around a seven-foot titan with playground handles and bank in an impossible, off-balance prayer from way downtown.
"Pure luck! That was total garbage!" Oden bellowed, his face flushed scarlet as he threw his massive arms in frustration. "What's six points?! We'll take it right back!"
Xu Ling had no time for him.
He was already engulfed by an ecstatic mob of teammates, grinning through the chest bumps and soaking in his moment. Down in the corner of the screen, ESPN flashed the halftime stat comparison between the two stars:
Xu Ling: 19 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, 1 block (7-of-11 FG)
Oden: 14 points, 11 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block (6-of-8 FG)
"How long have we waited for a freshman showdown like this?" Billy Packer said from the desk, unable to conceal his thrill. "It takes me right back to that legendary 1982 NCAA Championship game—the very first summit clash between Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing. Are we watching the dawn of another all-time great rivalry tonight?"
"Don't forget Kevin Durant!" Jim Nantz chimed in with a grin. "These three young men are destined to unleash towering waves across the basketball world for years to come!"
Looking back from the vantage point of today, that prophecy could not have been more accurate.
Chapter 40