Inside the San Jose Arena, a crowd of fifteen thousand packed the stands.
The championship of the 2006 Pete Newell Invitational would be decided tonight.
CSTV had decided to broadcast the game nationwide.
Texas Tech's opponent, Marquette University, had grown into an increasingly formidable Big East powerhouse over recent years. Head coach Tom Crean's guiding philosophy was simple: "If you don't like fighting the whole world, don't step into Marquette's gym."
Yet as the consensus strongest team in this tournament, Marquette had not captured a single headline.
From the start of the invitational to this point, only two major stories had emerged, and both belonged to Texas Tech.
The first was Xu Ling claiming he wanted to become the Michael Jordan of college basketball.
The second was Xu Ling declaring, after dishing out twelve assists in the knockout round, that he loved sweet isolation play.
It was simply absurd!
In terms of roster depth, they outmatched TTU.
In terms of rankings, Marquette was No. 20 in the nation in this week's AP poll. Texas Tech? Unranked.
Yet the media spotlight stubbornly refused to land on them.
Even worse, Xu Ling had caught the eye of draft expert Chad Ford on the back of a few dominant beatdowns against weak competition, while Marquette's core contributors remained pegged as players with "draft potential, but no visible draft stock yet."
"Word is TTU has the Michael Jordan of college basketball, but we've only seen that in the news. Let's hope he's not just all talk," Marquette sophomore guard Wesley Matthews told the CSTV reporter.
When Xu Ling took the floor, quite a few fans in the arena booed him.
Apparently, his "College Jordan" remark had spread far and wide.
Yet he completely ignored the crowd's reaction, and when the CSTV crew asked him for a pregame interview, he politely declined.
That left the media utterly bewildered.
A player who seemed so loud and flashy had decisively turned down an opportunity to amplify his voice on television.
Wasn't that a contradiction? If he liked talking big, he should have seized the chance to say even more. If he loved the spotlight, all the more reason to soak up exposure on a national broadcast.
Xu Ling said nothing, just kept putting up jumpers.
His roommate, Roderick Craig, said excitedly, "You're already a star player now!"
"Does being a star player mean Coach won't pick me apart?" Xu Ling countered.
Craig grumbled, "Well, who told you to compare yourself to Jordan..."
"Let me ask you," Xu Ling said. "Do you think Coach likes players who dare to compare themselves to Jordan, or does he prefer guys who wouldn't even dare to dream it?"
The question was a bit too deep, and Craig had no answer.
Knight stood on the sideline looking like a lion ready to tear into someone at any second, his expression sour.
Whenever a player missed a layup during drills, he would roar at him.
Xu Ling noticed this, so he intentionally clanked a layup off the rim.
"Hey, College Jordan!" Knight barked. "I swear, if Michael saw you practice, he'd sue you for defamation!"
Xu Ling casually dribbled the ball over to Knight. "Believe it or not, I refuse to believe MJ never blew a routine layup."
Knight snapped, "I never saw it! The only thing I've seen is someone claiming to be College Jordan—you—blowing the simplest layup drill!"
"If I said I blew the layup just to watch you yell at me, would that make you even angrier, Coach?"
A sharp intake of breath!
Standing right in front of Knight, Xu Ling heard the coach draw in a heavy breath—one of his ways of forcing himself to calm down.
"Get lost!"
Knight despised players without respect for hierarchy, had no patience for those who lacked boundaries, and hated it even more when someone joked around while he was asserting his coaching authority.
Yet his attention kept drifting back to Xu Ling uncontrollably, like a beast lying in ambush waiting for cunning prey to show a weakness.
After that, Xu Ling didn't mess up another routine drill.
TTU adjusted their starting lineup slightly.
In the past few games, they had started freshman point guard Charlie Burgess. But tonight, Knight knew Marquette was no pushover. They were a top-20 team in the country; using this game for developmental experimentation would be downright disrespectful.
So he went with his strongest available five: Martin Zeno, Alan Voskuil, Xu Ling, Darryl Dora, and John Plefka.
Marquette's starting unit was well established: their perimeter "Big Three" of Wesley Matthews, Jerel McNeal (SG), and Dominic James (PG), alongside Jamil Lott (PF) and Ousmane Barro (C).
Positionally, Xu Ling was at small forward tonight, matching up directly against Wesley Matthews.
Only when standing toe-to-toe with Matthews did Xu Ling realize just how powerfully built the man was. The coaching staff had mentioned during yesterday's scouting session that Matthews possessed physical strength well beyond the collegiate level, but seeing it in person was still eye-opening.
Even so, Xu Ling didn't think he would lose to him.
On sheer physique alone, Xu Ling before cutting weight hadn't lagged behind either.
"Yo, TTU's MJ, nice to meet you," Matthews opened with a greeting that was anything but friendly. "You might be great at working the press, but let me tell you, playing good ball matters more than anything."
What kind of patronizing garbage was this guy babbling about?
"Oh, really?" Xu Ling had a peculiar habit: he never played along with people he disliked. "Personally, I think dealing with the media is way more important than playing well."
The moment Xu Ling said it, Matthews's temper flared.
What did that prove? It proved all the hype had been deliberately engineered by this TTU "Jordan." He had made those statements purely to grab attention, and he wasn't even bothering to hide it.
"Looks like I'll have to teach you how to be a good rookie," Matthews said coldly.
Xu Ling still had no idea what had gotten the guy so worked up.
Was he some rabid Jordan fanatic, so toxic that he couldn't stand anyone invoking MJ's name?
Whatever it was, Xu Ling would keep watching. But first, let's play.
The opening tip went to Marquette, center Barro using his size advantage to secure the ball.
They pushed the pace immediately. Primary guard Dominic James drove hard into the paint looking to strike quickly, but his shot was contested.
TTU earned a fastbreak chance, but lacking a true point guard on the floor, they couldn't capitalize on the fleeting opening, and a miscue in the frontcourt let Wesley Matthews come away with a steal.
Matthews looked built like a bull, yet his straight-line speed was blistering. His objective was clear—storm downcourt for a slam. But the instant he went airborne, a powerful force from behind swatted the ball right out of his hands.
Matthews's eyes went wide as he looked at the man who had stripped him—who else could it be but TTU's Jordan?
"Motherfucker!" Matthews cursed under his breath.
Xu Ling secured the loose ball and didn't hold it, launching a long outlet down the floor.
Alan Voskuil converted a smooth floating layup off the glass.
After scoring the game's first points, the Dane made sure to point back at Xu Ling, acknowledging the dime.
"Don't be mad," Xu Ling said softly to the fuming Matthews. "You'll get another chance."
Of course I'll have another damn chance, you think I need you to tell me that?
Matthews felt as if someone were blasting heavy metal in his ear while he was trying to sleep. Irritation surged through him, making him thoroughly agitated.
Still, even Matthews couldn't do whatever he wanted.
He might have been Marquette's top draft prospect, but he wasn't the team's unquestioned centerpiece.
The real leader was Dominic James, last season's Big East Rookie of the Year.
James signaled for a screen from Matthews, seemingly wanting to test Xu Ling's defense.
Xu Ling hated being reactive.
Being on the receiving end was never his style—just like the skippable parts of late-night adult videos, he preferred taking the initiative. Before James could get the pick from Matthews, he was met by Xu Ling aggressively stepping up to trap him.
Funnily enough, James was listed at 5-foot-9, about 175 centimeters—even slightly shorter than Xu Ling in his previous life.
Having once been an undersized guard himself, Xu Ling knew exactly what kind of pressure made them uncomfortable.
And now, he had the tools to do so much more.
Amid the chaos of the double-team, Xu Ling used his body to shield the referee's line of sight while smothering James's passing lanes. The moment James hesitated, the ball was swatted to the floor.
Martin Zeno dove in and corralled it.
Xu Ling sprinted ahead into the frontcourt, catching the pass on the run from Zeno.
Matthews gave chase in fury, determined to teach this damn freshman a lesson. Yet this possession would provide the answer to one question: why Wesley Matthews's draft outlook was murky, while Eli Xu had been pegged by Chad Ford as a future first-rounder.
At top speed, Matthews's straight-line burst was no slower than Xu Ling's. He caught up. Both leaped into the air as they hit the paint, Matthews throwing his mountain-like frame into Xu Ling—even taking a foul would be worth it, he thought. But reality had other ideas.
Xu Ling's center of gravity merely shuddered. The strength honed from years of playing inside allowed him to maintain maximum balance, and his remarkable long arms swung the ball past Matthews in a brilliant flash of orange.
BOOOM!
"And-one!" the announcer roared. "Eli just posterized Wesley Matthews!"
"Want to know how to deal with the media?" Xu Ling looked at Matthews provocatively, then stated a matter of objective fact: "Points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks... Fill up the stat sheet, and they'll come chasing after you on their own. Pretty simple, isn't it?"
Matthews felt all the ambient noise in the world fade away, leaving only Xu Ling's understated yet deeply humiliating words buzzing in his ears.
Fuck! God damn it!
Chapter 8