How High Is High for Buddy Hield This Season?
By Chip Rouse
Buddy Hield began his senior season at Oklahoma with a 30-point performance in a season-opening win over Memphis, and he’s been pouring in the points ever since.
As Buddy “Buckets” goes, so go the Sooners, and OU fans are counting on big things from their National Player of the Year candidate as he and his Oklahoma teammates get set to turn the calendar page and ready themselves for all the madness that blows in along with college basketball’s final act of 2015-16.
Hield, like most college players as the long season grinds on toward March tourney time, has had his off nights, but the 6-4 senior superstar has easily been up far more than down this season, as his offensive numbers clearly indicate.
Hield is the Big 12’s leading scorer with a 25.4 points-per-game average, which is second best in the country, and he is also one of the nation’s most dangerous three-point marksmen, averaging over four treys per game and firing away behind the three-point line at over 48-percent proficiency.
OU’s Mr. Do Everything is the only player in the country this season who is averaging better than 25 points and five rebounds per game. Hield’s game-high 29 points in the Sooners’ pivotal 14-point victory last Saturday over West Virginia, pushed him over the 2,000 mark in career scoring and placed him in the top-five on the all-time Oklahoma scoring leaderboard with 2,026 points for his stellar career, which isn’t over yet.
His 29-point total at West Virginia marked the 14th time in 26 games Hield has scored 25 or more points this season. In his previous three seasons as a Sooner, he had reached 25 points in a game just six times total.
Hield passed two-time OU All-American Stacey King in career points on Saturday and No. 4 on the list Darryl “Choo” Kennedy is well within his sights, just 71 points away.
It is not totally out of the question that Hield could end his career as the third leading scorer in Oklahoma basketball history, but it would take a huge push to reach Tim McCalister’s 2,275-career points. With no more than 13 games remaining for the Sooners this season, they would have to win six games in the NCAA Tournament to reach that level. Wouldn’t that be a nice double-double.
Wayman Tisdale is the all-time leading scorer at Oklahoma with what would appear to be a Joe DiMaggio-like record 2,661 points, and the all-time Sooner great accomplished that over just three seasons.
Hield may not leave Oklahoma as the Sooners’ all-time scoring leader, but the native of the Bahamas who came to OU by way of Sunrise Christian Academy in Wichita, Kan., will definitely have his name at the top of the charts when it comes to three-point shooting. He has made 311 treys in his four seasons at Oklahoma. That’s 52 more than the next-best career total, held by former Sooner Terry Evans (259 from 1990-93).
Hield’s has 109 made three-balls this season, also a new season record at OU (passing Nate Erdmann, who had 105 in 1996-97). His 64 three-pointers in Big 12 play this season currently ties him with former Oklahoma State player Keiton Paige (2011-12) for the most in a single season in conference history.
Stephen Curry, a name that should be familiar to fans who follow the NBA, holds the all-time record for college three-point field goals with 162 in 369 attempts in 2007-08.
Regardless of how the remainder of the season goes for the Sooners and, specifically, Buddy Hield, this season will definitely go down as one to remember for the Sooner Nation and the year of “Buddy Love” in Oklahoma basketball.