George Schroeder

USA TODAY Sports

NORMAN, Okla. — Late in the first half Tuesday night, Buddy Hield grabbed a defensive rebound and raced downcourt, seemingly intent on driving to score. But near the basket, he turned and dribbled back out — and then suddenly pirouetted again and, in one motion, drilled a 3-pointer.

On the University of Oklahoma bench, the reaction was the same as probably anybody else’s. Sooners assistant coach Chris Crutchfield just shook his head and said, “Did he just do that?”

Hield did. And by now, the Sooners are beginning to expect it. This is where it has gotten to with Hield: The reigning Big 12 men's basketball Player of the Year has ascended to a higher plane. Hield is averaging 25.9 points and shooting 53% from the field — and an astounding 52.3% from 3-point range — dramatic improvement from his junior season. His 3-point shooting percentage is second in Division I, as is his scoring average, and he's No. 1 in 3-pointers per game (4.16)

Oklahoma is ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25 and No. 2 in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. And the continued development of their best player is the biggest reason the Sooners look capable of a run to the Final Four. The 6-4, 212-pound senior is a better ball-handler, better midrange shooter, better defender — the list goes on and on.

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“He’s significantly better,” OU coach Lon Kruger says. “Really, across the board. It’s kind of amazing that he could take a starting point that was so high and improve so much.”

It’s not just Hield, of course. Oklahoma has a veteran nucleus filled with dangerous scorers; the Sooners average almost 86 points. But when they play at LSU on Saturday as part of the Big 12-SEC Challenge, the spotlight will be the battle between Hield, the current favorite to win national Player of the Year honors, and LSU freshman power forward Ben Simmons, who might just be the No. 1 pick in this summer’s NBA Draft.

The key reason for the Sooners’ run this season is what Hield decided about last summer’s Draft. After averaging 17.4 points to lead Oklahoma to the Sweet 16 last season, he considered leaving early for the NBA. No, strike that. “I wanted to leave,” he says. But he was projected as a fringe first-rounder and more likely a second-round pick. The evaluation made Hield angry. At himself.

“You’re the Big 12 Player of the Year,” he says, “and you think you’re NBA-ready — and I wasn’t. … I could have left, but it wasn’t a smart decision to leave.”

***

When Hield decided to return for his senior season, he couldn’t help playing a trick on Crutchfield. The assistant had discovered Hield while scouting an event in the Bahamas. When Hield was in high school at Sunrise Christian Academy in Wichita, Kan., Crutchfield had made signing him his first priority as an Oklahoma assistant. They’ve been close for a long time.

Crutchfield was on the road recruiting on the day Hield had to declare his NBA intentions. He called Hield that morning, only to hear: “I just talked to my mom,” Hield told him. “We’ve been praying about it. I think I’m gonna go.”

Crutchfield’s heart sank. They’d spent hours discussing the decision, listing pros and cons on a whiteboard in his office. Crutchfield’s assessment was the same as most of the NBA people they’d talked with: Hield would benefit from another year of development. But he told Hield he would support the decision, and he asked him to tell Kruger in person.

“I was dejected,” Crutchfield says. “He let me go two hours thinking it.”

Then, finally, came a text, and the message was simple: “Unfinished business.”

“I’m goofy like that,” Hield says. “I play games.”

It was an extension of his upbeat personality, as expressed with a seemingly ever-present grin. Kruger says “the gym brightens up” when Hield is there — which means it’s well-lit most of the time, because Hield is nearly always there. But don’t be fooled by the exuberance. Since arriving in Norman, Hield has stood out for his work ethic. Kruger says he’s among the most driven players he’s coached.

“He’s extreme, an outlier,” says Kruger, who says Hield’s countless hours in the gym have been striking for their composition. “He works on the holes in his game. Most kids go to the gym and do what they’re comfortable doing, do what feels good. Buddy … works on things to improve those areas he was deficient.

“It sets him apart a little bit, and the results speak for themselves.”

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So when Hield decided to return for his senior season, he set about working on the remaining deficiencies in his game. The assessment from NBA types was that Hield needed work on his ball-handling and his shooting efficiency.

He kept shooting, of course. Several hundred shots daily, including his favorite drill, which involves dozens and dozens of 3-pointers. He must make three consecutive shots from each of seven positions around the arc. Miss, and he goes back to the previous position. When he hits 21 in a row, the game changes: He has to hit 4 of 5 from five different spots, with the same one-step-back penalty. Then it’s 5 of 6 and 6 of 7.

“It keeps me mentally focused,” he says. And if the drill made for “some rough days” in earlier years, “it’s a piece of cake now.”

But Hield added to his regimen ball-handling and various other drills designed to help him create shots: Pump-fake, one dribble, pull up and shoot. Pump-fake, drive to the rim. Over and over and over, those several hundred shots a day.

“I just shoot until I feel comfortable,” Hield says. “It might be three hours, two hours, whatever it takes.”

Lately, he’s looked pretty comfortable. Although half of his shots (151 of 302) have come from 3-point range, Hield has become a much more complete threat, attacking the rim and either scoring or drawing fouls, which means points — he’s hitting 90% from the free-throw line. As Creighton coach Greg McDermott put it after a loss to the Sooners in December: “Last year he was a shooter. This year he’s a basketball player.”

“Across the board, he just carries himself with more confidence,” Kruger says. “He absolutely expects to win every time we step on the floor. … He’s handling the ball with more confidence in a crowd, attacking the rim. Then you combine that with shooting the ball as well as you can shoot it from 3, that makes it a tough matchup.”

Take the other night against Texas Tech, when Hield scored 30 points, the seventh time this season he’s reached that mark. It might have been the best example yet of that efficiency he’s been trying to achieve. He took only 12 shots: 9 of 12 overall, 5 of 8 from 3-point range and 7 of 8 from the free-throw line.

It wasn’t an aberration. Hield is averaging 15.9 field-goal attempts (7.9 3-point attempts). He’s a high-volume shooter in the practice gym, but not so much in games.

“He’s been very efficient,” Kruger says. “He doesn’t need many shots to get (points).”

***

Because of his production, Hield is beginning to draw comparisons to Steph Curry, which is unfair but not necessarily unwarranted — at least, not if the comparison is to Curry’s production in college. Curry averaged 28.6 points as a senior at Davidson in 2008-09, but took 20.2 shots a game (9.9 3-point attempts). He shot 45.4% overall and 38.7% from 3-point range.

Hield plays on a national-title contender, surrounded by teammates who can score. He probably doesn’t have to take as many shots as Curry did in fueling Davidson. But Crutchfield says Hield is taking fewer “bad shots” than before.

“Your best scorer is gonna take a few bad shots,” Crutchfield says, “and you understand that. Even (Kevin Durant) takes some bad shots. But he’s gotten to a point this year where he just hasn’t taken any at all.”

That includes those shots that leave the coaches, just like the rest of us, shaking their heads. A few moments before that coast-to-coast move against Texas Tech, Hield found himself with the ball near midcourt with the shot clock winding down. He sized up his opponent — 6-8 forward Zach Smith — took two dribbles in and then fired from 27 feet.

“A year ago, he would have dribbled right up to the guy and tried to shoot it,” Crutchfield says. “Now he realizes, ‘OK, I’ve got the space I need, shoot it.’ That’s where he’s grown.”

Moments later, from similar range, Hield took a pass from a teammate and drilled another 3-pointer. He says he’d told Jordan Woodard, the Sooners’ junior guard, he was “gonna let one fly from deep.” In rhythm, he didn’t care about the distance.

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“I just let it fly,” he says. And later, when Crutchfield told him, “That was pretty deep,” Hield’s reply came with a smile:

“I can see that far.”

And on that driving, spinning, reversing 3 near the end of the half?

“I was just trying to freeze my guy, to run around and freeze him a little bit,” Hield says. “It’s a good way to catch them off-guard, to make them fall asleep.”

He admits, though, that it’s becoming more difficult to catch defenders napping. So far, that hasn’t much mattered. If Hield can see the basket and has the space, he’ll let it fly and let the results speak for themselves. And when he does, he knows what you’re thinking.

“ ‘Oh, are you kidding me? He’s making shots like that now?’ ” Hield says. “It’s fun.”

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