It simply hasn’t gotten stale. 
 
It’s been 1,160 days since Max Abmas’ college debut, 1,037 days since he lit up Omaha in his first Summit League Tournament and 659 days since he led Oral Roberts into the Sweet 16 with that win over Florida. Yet here, there and everywhere in his four-year career, the star guard has continued to captivate the college basketball world. 
 
The latest golden touch from the Golden Eagle was his half-court buzzer beater to push ORU past Kansas City last Saturday. It garnered Abmas Lou Henson Award National Player of the Week honors, and put Midcourt Max back in front of a national audience, landing on the SportsCenter top 10. The highlights keep rolling in for a player that already has a litany of accomplishments behind his name, but that doesn’t mean there still isn’t unfinished business in Tulsa. 
 
“It’s the last dance right here,” Abmas told the Summit League’s Kienan Dixon earlier this year. “I want to end with a bang. A couple of years ago we made the Sweet 16, our goal is to win a championship and get back to March Madness and make a run.” 
 
That dramatic shot to sink the Roos kept ORU in control of its hunt for one of the few things that has eluded Abmas thus far: a regular season title. His continued excellence, and evolution, is the primary reason the Golden Eagles (13-4, 4-0) sit as the heavy favorite to make that happen.
 
Abmas is working on yet another dominant offensive season, averaging 20.8 points and 3.7 assists per game, while peppering in his trademark efficient, high-volume three-point shooting (37.0% 3FG). Just 11 players in Summit League history have posted seasons averaging at least 20 points and 3.5 assists per game and no one – not Nate Wolters, not George Hill – has done it three times. 
 
The Rockwall, Texas native may well do just that. 
 
“When I go home and I say I’m playing with the best guard I’ve ever played with, it’s true,” ORU guard Isaac McBride said last season.
 
But Abmas has been more than just the avalanche of points and shots made with his feet on the paint of halfcourt logos. He’s fit as the centerpiece of changing offenses at ORU, first in pairing with a shooting big in Kevin Obanor during the Sweet 16 season, to then embracing the addition of a secondary perimeter scorer like McBride a year ago. 
 
This year, he’s taking a lower percentage of shots than he did last season (26.6% against 30.2%) as the Golden Eagles have worked 7-foot-5 Connor Vanover into the fold. Through it all, he’s led the charge on what have been lethal offenses at ORU and none more so than this year, as the Golden Eagles currently rank 23rd in the country in offensive efficiency.
 
Paul Mills was asked to sum up Abmas’ impact at ORU following the Golden Eagles loss to North Dakota State in the semifinals of last year’s Summit League Tournament. It was a question without an answer.
 
“Yeah, I couldn’t,” Mills said, the emotion clear on his face. 
 
While it was a good question, it was also a bit of a rhetorical one. Abmas’ impact on the program – now the fifth all-time leading scorer at ORU and 10th in Summit League history, the headliner of one of the great mid-major tournament runs in recent memory – was already cemented on that day in Sioux Falls last March. 
 
That night felt a bit like a goodbye to Abmas, who would shortly thereafter go through the NBA draft process for the second time but who, to the delight of college basketball fans, would ultimately return for a fourth season. This year hasn’t been without minor kinks, as Abmas shooting numbers are down from his own prodigious standards, but his overall dominance has set ORU up to make his last dance memorable. 
 
The Golden Eagles' 10-game winning streak was snapped on Monday night against a good and hungry New Mexico team, but what they learned in that impromptu game in The Pit should do nothing but help bolster their Summit League campaign. 
 
And, Abmas' backcourt mate McBride has been taking notes long before the 82-75 to the Lobos. “The first thing I learned from Max was that fearlessness and trying to compete every second, and doing what Max does every night in terms of playing hard on both ends,” he noted last year.
 
That mentality has made Abmas a college basketball legend, and it’s a legacy he’s continuing to write with big goals still on the horizon.

#SUMMITMBB