If all goes according to plan this season, Desure Buie will shatter the Hofstra record for most games played in a career. And he’ll have spent his final 90-something games acutely aware of the fragility and potentially temporary nature of a college basketball career.

Buie, who is scheduled to suit up for the 120th time Sunday when Hofstra hosts Manhattan, is in position to surge past Charles Jenkins and Nathaniel Lester atop the program’s all-time games played list — each played in 131 games — because of a spell of misfortune whose timing yielded long-term benefits for Buie and the Pride.

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The Queens-born point guard tore his left ACL and left meniscus against Columbia on Nov. 29, 2016 —the eighth game of his sophomore season. Had Buie been injured two games later, he wouldn’t have been eligible for a medical redshirt. A player can apply for a redshirt if he participates in fewer than 30 percent of his team’s games and Hofstra played 32 games in 2016-17.

But back in the fall of 2016, Buie wasn’t thinking of playing a fifth season at Hofstra.

“I realized how fast the game could be gone,” Buie said this week. “Some people may take it for granted. Not saying I was, but after that, I realized this thing could be gone in a split second. You never know.

“It was definitely a wakeup call for me — a blessing in disguise. I’m not happy about it, but I’m glad that I went through it.”

The injury stalled Buie’s ascension into the starting lineup as the point guard — he was being groomed as the successor to then-senior Deron Powers — and hampered the Pride, which was 5-3 with Buie and 10-14 after he got hurt.

MBB: Nice find from Desure Buie to Isaac Kante for #Hofstra! #RoarWithPride pic.twitter.com/gpKRoAqP10

— Hofstra Men's Basketball (@HofstraMBB) December 20, 2019

But it didn’t take long Buie to figure out the best way to put his time on the bench to good use. Already comfortable as a traditional point guard who looked to get his teammates involved before searching for his own shot, Buie found the game slowing down as he watched from the sidelines.

“It’s little things that you learn,” Buie said. “Like using ball screens. Little things that you see on the court — small rotation (things) that you read that if you were on the court, you wouldn’t be able to read. But being off the court, you (go) ‘Oh, wow, he’s open’ (and) you tell your teammate that.”

Buie made it back in time to start the 2017-18 season opener and went on to average 6.4 points and 3.3 assists per game while splitting point guard duties with Kenny Wormley. Off the court, Buie emerged with then-junior Justin Wright-Foreman and then-sophomore Eli Pemberton as the leaders of the locker room. The leadership trio remained in place last season, when Buie became the full-time point guard and Wright-Foreman finished second in the nation in scoring while leading Hofstra to the regular season CAA championship and a spot in the conference title game. 

Buie’s responsibilities increased following the graduation of Wright-Foreman, who was drafted by the Utah Jazz and is currently playing for their G-League affiliate. Taking on a more vocal role and leading by example was an easy transition for Buie to make.

“People always say ‘(The point guard is) a coach on the floor’ and they don’t really mean it all the time,” Hofstra head coach Joe Mihalich said. “We mean it more than (with) any other guy we’ve ever said it about. He is awesome. He’s incredible in your timeouts, in your huddles, in your film study. All those things, he’s locked in and he carries it on the floor and makes the other guys better too.

“As good a leader as I’ve ever been around in my life.”

The on-court adjustment took a bit longer for Buie, who committed four turnovers and took just one shot in the final seven minutes of the season opener Nov. 6 as Hofstra squandered an eight-point lead and fell to visiting San Jose State, 79-71. Buie wasn’t the only veteran to struggle down the stretch — the Pride was outscored 26-10 as Buie, Pemberton, Jalen Ray and Tareq Coburn went a combined 3-for-9 from the field — but the loss was particularly stinging for the most veteran player on the roster.

Congratulations to @Desure_Buie on being named the GoHofstra Student-Athlete of the Week following a pair of outstanding games for the senior! Led the Pride with 20 points and six assists in the win over Stony Brook! #RoarWithPride pic.twitter.com/2dgDmgrUO6

— Hofstra Men's Basketball (@HofstraMBB) December 13, 2019

“That was definitely a wakeup call — nobody’s going to hand you anything,” Buie said. “You’ve got to go out there and perform, no matter who you are — picked first, picked last, you’ve still got to perform at the end of the day. And that that day, we needed that, because that made us a lot better.”

A mere 15 days later, Buie displayed a new assertiveness by scoring a career-high 29 points to lead the Pride to one of the biggest regular season wins in program history, an 88-78 upset at UCLA.

“I really felt like it came naturally to him,” Mihalich said. “He realized, you know what, I’m the offense right now. I have to be the offense now, I looked for Elijah, O look for Jalen, I look for Isaac (Kante), Tareq — I’m the offense right now and it really was natural.”

Now, a little more than three years after a career-altering injury, Buie has become ore than just Hofstra’s most experienced player. He’s the only member of the Pride to score in double figures in each of the last seven games, a span in which Buie is averaging 18.7 points and three steals per game while fashioning an assist-to-turnover ratio of 35/18.

“It’s a great thing to play a lot of games — not everybody’s going to get that chance,” Buie said. “I’m happy I got to sit back, learn and get a lot better, because I wouldn’t be the player I am today if that year would have been lost. Last year would have been my last year and I wouldn’t have been as good a player as I am now.”

“Some guys, you’re around for two years and you feel like they’ve been there for seven and you’re like, man, when is this guy leaving?” Mihalich said. “With him, it’s been more (games) than anybody else and doggone it, it feels like he just got here. He’s a refreshing guy and he’s really savoring every minute of this year. He’s the first guy to practice, the last guy to leave. He finishes your sentences for you.

“He’s just a special guy, and I’ll tell you what: I know he’s going to be here as long as anybody else. I wish it was going to be twice that.”