Oklahoma's Dream Season Intact as Brilliant Buddy Hield Sparks Comeback vs. LSU

It's usually around this time of year that we really start arguing about who should be the National Player of the Year, but it seems we'll have to think outside the box for the next six weeks, because Oklahoma's Buddy Hield just put another layer of cement on his status as the front-runner for all the individual awards.

He also ensured Oklahoma will remain No. 1 in Monday's AP Top 25 with its 77-75 victory over host LSU on Saturday.

In what was billed as the battle between two of the favorites for the Wooden Award, Hield shot 7-of-9 from three-point range in the final 16 minutes to erase what was a 12-point LSU lead after a reverse dunk from Ben Simmons nearly broke social media as we know it. ESPN provided highlights:

Isaiah Cousins actually made the final two shots to give Oklahoma the win, but the Sooners only had a chance to be in that spot because of Hield's 32 points.

But what else is new? Nothing, according to College Basketball Talk's Rob Dauster and ESPN's Jeff Goodman:

Hield entered the game leading the nation in made three-pointers per game, with 4.16 of them, and you probably don't need a math degree to know that number went up after he sank eight triples in the Deaf Dome on Saturday night.

His mark now stands at 4.35 per game, and if you need help putting that number in perspective, Stephen Curry averaged 4.50 per game during his record-setting sophomore season at Davidson. And Curry "only" shot 43.9 percent from long range that season. After Saturday night, Hield is shooting an unconscionable 52.4 percent on the year.

Better yet, the man has made at least 50.0 percent of his three-point attempts in 13 of his last 14 games, during which he has averaged 28.5 points per game and 5.0 made three-pointers on 9.36 attempts (53.4 percent).

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And while it's easy to marvel at his borderline historically great three-point stroke, Hield has been just as great from inside the arc. The three-point barrage in the second half against LSU is what will undoubtedly end up in the highlight reels, but he had a few outstanding drives in the first half as well, one of which resulted in an acrobatic reverse layup.

For as lethal as his 23-foot jumper is, he uses it as a decoy pretty often. Over the course of the season, he has attempted 166 three-pointers against 158 two-pointers. And that doesn't include the two-point attempts on which he was fouled and didn't make the shot—though he almost certainly proceeded to make the foul shots, as he's also shooting 90.5 percent from the charity stripe.

Simmons is the better NBA prospect and the more freakishly physical specimen, but through 20 games, no one has figured out a way to slow Hield. In what has been a wildly unpredictable season in the world of college hoops, he has been the one good thing we can count on time and again.

Even though he opened the game 1-of-6 from downtown and 6-of-13 overall from the field, you simply knew it was coming.

We've seen it too many times to expect anything less.

Keep in mind, we once praised Kansas' Frank Mason's defensive effort in a game where Hield scored 46. Sure, he had an extra 15 minutes of overtime sessions to reach that mark, but now that it has been nearly a month, can we properly gush over the absurdity of that? The man scored 46 points on 23 shots, and we had nothing but positive things to say about the defense against him.

After that memorable triple-overtime game against Kansas in early January, we immediately started looking ahead to the rematch. (Feb. 13, in case you forgot. Watch the game and then go buy roses.) But don't count on a rematch of Hield vs. Simmons, because this fall-from-ahead loss was the final nail in the Tigers' brutal nonconference coffin.

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According to ESPN's RPI metrics, LSU entered this game with a nonconference strength of schedule that ranked 259th in the country. Playing the No. 1 team in the nation will certainly help that to some extent, but it merely added another loss to a nonconference record that now stands at 7-6—and this was the only forgivable one out of those half-dozen losses.

The Tigers have clearly been a much-better team with Craig Victor and Keith Hornsby in the lineup, but there's still a lot of work to be done. The home win over Kentucky was nice, but don't forget, Matt Norlander of CBS Sports said they were "on the wrong side of the bubble...for the NIT" after opening the season with a 7-5 record. They might need to go 9-1 down the stretch for Simmons to appear in the NCAA tournament.

The Sooners, on the other hand, are almost as much of a lock for a No. 1 seed as Hield is a lock for the Wooden Award.

The country's best team has the country's best player and one heck of a candidate for the country's best coach (Lon Kruger). The Sooners are even in the driver's seat to put an end to Kansas' streak of 11 consecutive Big 12 regular-season championships.

It has been quite the dream season.

Though there's plenty of time left for things to go downhill in a hurry, they've already played their road games against Kansas, Iowa State and Baylor. And based on how out of sorts West Virginia has been over the course of its last four games, that remaining road tilt against the Mountaineers isn't looking anywhere near as formidable as it did a couple of weeks ago.

They'll most likely drop a game somewhere along the way. They might even lose a couple. But it would take some kind of unforeseeable collapse for Oklahoma to drop off the top line at this point.

If you think the reigning Big 12 Player of the Year is going to let his team fall apart that badly, you might want to take another look at Hield's one-man-wrecking-crew performance against LSU.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.