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Buddy Hield's defining outing isn't enough for Oklahoma in epic battle of No. 1s

LAWRENCE, Kan. – About 50 minutes after the performance of his life, a go-for-broke, put-you-on-my-back, 46-point tour de force, Buddy Hield emerged from the Oklahoma locker room looking like a man who needed nothing more than the warm embrace of a comfortable bed and a welcoming pillow. From his neck dangled a slim chain. At the bottom, encrusted in diamond dust, hung a star.

Buddy Hield reacts as Jayhawks celebrate during Oklahoma's loss. (Getty)
Buddy Hield reacts as Jayhawks celebrate during Oklahoma's loss. (Getty)

To call Hield anything else would deny what he’d done in the preceding three hours, three of the finest ever played here at Allen Fieldhouse, where for 60 years they’ve hosted basketball games. For 53 minutes on the court, over a full regulation and three overtimes, Hield confounded the Kansas Jayhawks and turned the rarest of rare games – a No. 1-vs.-No. 1 matchup, pitting the top team in the AP poll (Kansas) against that of the coaches (Oklahoma) – into a personal showcase. And then came the final minute of the best regular-season college basketball game in years, the one Buddy Hield owned until he didn’t.

“It’s going to hurt my heart forever,” he said, and for all of the things the 16,300 who bore witness will remember – the impossible shots and 3-point mastery and fashion in which one man controlled a 10-man game – what will evermore plague Hield is what he couldn’t do. Such is the curse of greatness.

First and foremost, he’ll see the scoreboard: Kansas 109, Oklahoma 106, triple overtime, No. 1 vs. No. 1 exceeding the impossible expectations. And then he’ll envision the inbound pass with 8.6 seconds left in the third OT that he couldn’t slink past Frank Mason III, arms and legs splayed about, so close to the sideline Hield could smell his breath if he cared to. And finally the last shot, only his 23rd of the game, a 3-pointer to tie, missing badly and burying the long-held dream of a 22-year-old senior who came from the Caribbean to Wichita, Kan., as a teenager and yearned to beat the team that let the Player of the Year favorite get away.

“I just want to win here, man,” Hield said. “As a kid, I grew up watching this place in the Bahamas. I always said I want to play there, or I want to win there. And I came up short.”

Short is a relative term. What Hield did Monday night was unlike anything Allen Fieldhouse had seen since Kevin Durant scorched the Jayhawks for 25 first-half points in 2007, since Anthony Peeler dropped 43 on Kansas in 1992, since Kansas State’s Mike Wroblewski set the record for opponent scoring at the gym with 46 in 1961. The record had lived alone for half a century until Hield, a 6-foot-4 guard, laced his Nikes and torched the deep, unrelenting Jayhawks.

Oklahoma's Buddy Hield reacts to a made basket late in the first half against Kansas on Monday. (Getty)
Oklahoma's Buddy Hield reacts to a made basket late in the first half against Kansas on Monday. (Getty)

Hield’s feet were so sore by the end of the night he slipped off his sneakers and limped across the court toward the locker room, stopping only to oblige a picture with an Oklahoma fan who couldn’t help but ask. Already the Kansas faithful that stuck around after the game had feted him with a standing ovation, the performance so overwhelming that allegiance gave way to respect.

The particulars of the night – 13 of 23 from the field, 8 of 15 from 3-point range, 12 of 14 from the free-throw line, eight rebounds and seven assists – can’t fully encapsulate the work Hield put in to book the 46 points. “We actually did a really good job holding him to 46,” said Kansas coach Bill Self, who sicced all three of his starting guards – Mason, Devonté Graham and Wayne Selden Jr. – on Hield before settling on Mason in the second half.

Going into the second half, Self said he planned on using Graham to shadow Hield, whose 22 points pushed Oklahoma to a 44-40 halftime lead. Mason, a junior, did not appreciate this plan.

“He’s gonna wear you down,” Self said.

“No,” Mason said. “I want him.”

Over the next 35 minutes, Mason played bounty hunter. Everywhere Hield went, he wasn’t far behind, and Hield still managed to sneak free, only an inch of space necessary to loft his gorgeous jump shot. Back and forth OU and KU went, leads never lasting too long, the first overtime beckoning followed a missed free throw from Khadeem Lattin with 2.1 seconds left, the second after Selden came up short on a wide-open 3-pointer, the third when a Mason floater missed its mark.

Though he hadn’t locked down Hield, Mason put in a yeoman’s effort playing with four fouls. He face-guarded Hield on almost every possession, which Hield started in the corner before bolting to the top of the arc in search of a sliver of daylight. Kansas knew better than to leave him free in the corner, his favorite spot. Everyone had heard about Hield making 34 consecutive 3-pointers from the corner in warm-ups earlier in the day. That he’d turned into this sort of a scoring machine, averaging 24.7 points per game, still gnawed at Self. Hield was AAU teammates in Wichita with Perry Ellis, the senior who led Kansas with 27 points in 53 minutes. Self and his staff saw Hield enough to lure him here and whiffed. At a basketball factory like Kansas, it’s a mistake that can be papered over with class after class full of McDonald’s All-Americans.

The Jayhawks’ depth was supposed to be their advantage against Oklahoma, and yet Self ran out the same five for almost all three overtime periods: Mason, Selden, Graham, Ellis and senior Landen Lucas. Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger stuck with his starting five – Hield, Lattin, Jordan Woodard, Isaiah Cousins and Ryan Spangler – until Woodard fouled out with 15 seconds left. Graham hit both foul shots to put Kansas ahead 107-106, setting the stage for Hield’s inbound.

Surely the ball was going back to him, something everyone in the gym understood, particularly Mason. A referee told him not to get close to the sideline. He nodded. Then, when the ball was handed to Hield, Mason stepped in and started jumping, perilously near the line – over it, perhaps, claimed those examining the replay like Zapruder was behind the camera. Officials buried their whistles. Mason tipped the ball with his left hand, corralled it, ran upcourt, drew a foul on Hield and buried his free throws. When Hield missed the final shot, the whole of Allen let out sighs of relief, exhausted and exhilarated.

“January 4 is too early to be having games like this,” Self said.

Frank Mason III guards Oklahoma's Buddy Hield as he drives the lane on Monday. (Getty)
Frank Mason III guards Oklahoma's Buddy Hield as he drives the lane on Monday. (Getty)

Games like this are what make college basketball so great. The individual performance of a lifetime at a building where a team has won 31 consecutive games and the coach owns a 198-9 record sounds pretty fantastic any day of the year. It was good enough that even the man of the night needed to see it again.

“I have to watch it,” Buddy Hield said, and he didn’t mean tomorrow or next week. No, he was going back to his hotel room, getting film and breaking it down. Even if that meant starting at 1 a.m. and rolling and rewinding, watching and watching again, smiling and frowning, lamenting and yearning, he said he wouldn’t fall asleep until he’d seen what everyone else couldn’t stop raving about.

“You’ve got to get better,” Hield said.

His head would find that pillow and his body that bed eventually, and he planned to sleep off the pain both felt well into Tuesday. Until then, he would hold onto what could’ve been, what he couldn’t do, even if it paled compared to everything he did.