By now, it’s likely that you have heard Trey Townsends story. The kid who was born into an Oakland basketball family, and the kid who grew up in Greg Kampe basketball camps wanting to wear the Golden Grizzly uniform, is now the player of the year in the Horizon League. Trey started out just like us, fans of the Golden Grizzlies. As someone who has also grown up around the Oakland program, and around Trey, I decided to ask him some deeper Oakland questions. Spoiler: He’s a true lifer.
G: Who was your favorite Oakland player growing up?
T: Oh wow. I feel like I can’t answer that because I’m so close with a lot of them. Probably Reggie Hamilton when I was younger. He coached all the camps when me and you were younger and he was so nice to my brother, my sister and I. He’s been so nice to my parents too throughout all of my senior day stuff as well.
G: Mine too
G: Is there a favorite memory or favorite game you have from watching games in the O’rena?
T: Yes. I guess there are two, both pretty recent. One was when they beat Georgia here. Isaiah Brock had that dunk where he caught a lob outside of the backboard, that was a great experience. The other one is Blakes freshman year on senior day, when they had to miss the free throw. I was here with a few of my buddies and that was when I was a senior in high school.
G: Any good Kampe stories from your time as a camper?
T: Hmmm. He would always try to split up my brother and I, as well as all my friends on our camp teams. And then one year, I think my second to last year, he finally put us all on one team. And we didn’t win the tournament. He would joke to us ‘I put you on the same team and you couldn’t even win it?’ The other crazy thing is I only won one camp tournament in all 17 times I went here.
G: Did you ever win Kampe says? I never did. Kampe always made fun of me for never winning it as a Kampe says veteran.
T: I think I won that twice.
G: When was the first time it hit you that you were playing basketball for Oakland University?
T: Really the first game. Even though there were really no fans, just playing against Xavier in the first college game ever. 5 months before that I was playing Oxford basketball, not knocking Oxford, you know that year in the OAA was elite (Oakland County high school league. I played at Stoney Creek). When we first had fans in the Orena, even that exhibition game against Eastern Michigan was such a special thing. I remember thinking this is more than I ever even imagined it would be. And then this year the crowds have been insane all year so it’s been awesome.
G: When did you realize hey I might be a pretty good Division I basketball player?
T: Really good I think not until last year. I always knew I would work harder than everyone else and that would get me far. Just doing the dirty work would get me far. But if you are always working hard you are always getting better and I think finally I got better as time went on. I was with guys like Jalen and Jamal too, seeing great talents like that. Once I got that confidence, and they gave me confidence, I took it mentally like ok i can really do something with this basketball stuff.
G: Excluding the championship game, what is the performance of yours you are most proud of?
T: Do you wanna guess, Do you think you know?
G: Syracuse?
T: That’s a reasonable guess but we lost that game. I think it would be Xavier this year. I think just because of what happened the first time we played them. And then to go back and beat them was just really special. Also though, Michigan my freshman year was really fun. I played really well and all my buddies at home who were die hard Michigan or Michigan state fans were watching. Xavier this year would be number one though.
G: Since the Championship, has there been someone that reached out to you for an interview or just a congratulations that you were a little starstruck or surprised by?
T: No interviews really. I’ve been able to be lucky enough to build a relationship with a lot of the alumni. Guys like JJ, Larry, Dante Williams. That’s been really nice. The biggest one I think is Travis Bader finally followed me back on Instagram so that was a special moment for sure.
