OU’s Price can deliver knockout

? Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson never tires of watching footage of NBA Hall of Famer Larry Bird, one of the best crunch-time basketball players in history.

“He’d put the dagger in your heart,” Sampson said of Bird, the former Indiana State and Boston Celtics great.

Just as close to Sampson’s heart is OU senior guard Hollis Price.

“Hollis is like that, too. He’s cold-blooded,” Sampson said. “He has such courage. He has no fear whatsoever.”

Price is averaging 19.2 points a game going into today’s Big 12 Conference showdown against Kansas University at Lloyd Noble Center. The 3 p.m. game will be televised on CBS (channels 5 and 13).

Sampson isn’t just spouting cliches about the 6-foot-1 Price, who along with KU’s Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich and Texas’ T.J. Ford have emerged as leading candidates for Big 12 Player of the Year.

Price proved his courage after a terrifying on-court mishap at the end of his sophomore season. Price ran into Indiana State guard Kelyn Block and suffered a severe triceps injury that led to three surgeries on his right arm.

Doctors told Price he was lucky his shooting arm, which had three of Block’s teeth imbedded, did not need to be amputated.

“The tendon pulled away from my elbow, and it just missed my nerve which would have cost me the arm,” Price said. “My right arm was immobilized for two months so I could only shoot and dribble with my left hand. That ended up paying off a whole lot.”

Eventually, Price became equally adept at going both right and left on the court.

Price, a New Orleans native, is known as a good, but not great shooter. He has hit 46.1 percent of his shots including 41.3 percent of his three-point attempts. However, he leads the Big 12 in free-throw shooting at 94.1 percent (96 of 102).

Oklahoma guard Hollis Price, right, is fouled by Oklahoma State forward Andre Williams, center, as Ivan McFarlin goes for the block during a game Wednesday in Norman, Okla. Price and the Sooners will play host to Kansas at 3 p.m. today.

Price is the one OU player opponents don’t want to foul during crunch time.

“I know the game and don’t get rattled,” Price told Slam Magazine. “I’ve been through too much in life to get nervous playing a game. I’m all about winning. Whatever coach needs me to do to win games I’m there.”

KU coach Roy Williams is a Price booster, too.

“I admire him as much as anybody in the league and I’d say he’s probably in my top two or three favorite players I’ve ever coached against in this league,” Williams said. “It’s his heart. He doesn’t mind taking a bad shot. He loves to take the big shot. He plays on both ends of the court.

“He plays the kind of basketball that, when you watch him play, it looks like he enjoys playing, and he’s very gifted. He’s a really tough kid.”

Yet it is easy to take Price for granted.

When: 3 p.m. today.Where: Lloyd Noble Center, Norman, Okla.Television: CBS (Sunflower Broadband channels 5, 13).Records: Kansas 20-5, 10-1 Big 12 Conference; Oklahoma 18-4, 9-2.Last meeting: Oklahoma earned a 64-55 victory March 10, 2002, in the championship game of the Big 12 tournament.

“He can go along, go along, you forget about him for three to four minutes and he makes a three at the biggest point of the game,” Williams said. “It’s a dagger in the heart.”

Surprisingly, Price is not currently listed as an NBA Draft prospect. Analysts believe OU’s standout will go undrafted.

Sampson doesn’t buy it and believes he will see Price, like Bird, draining NBA threes for years to come.