Fort Wayne, IN – On Senior Night, the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons (19-10, 12-6 Horizon League) looked to snap their longest losing streak of the season. Coming off back-to-back losses to Youngstown State and Robert Morris, the Mastodons quickly tumbled from second in the Horizon League to fifth place in the standings. The losing skid was in danger of continuing as the Oakland Golden Grizzlies (12-16, 9-8 Horizon League) came to town looking to sweep the season series between the two teams. Unlike January’s matchup at the O’Rena, the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons played exceptionally well for the last 36 minutes of the game en route to a 80-66 win in the Hilliard Gates Sports Center.
First Half: The Golden Grizzlies came out of the gates hot, showing why they were able to dispatch the Mastodons in the first meeting between the two teams. DQ Cole started the scoring with a three from a reset possession on an offensive rebound from Allen Mukeba. Tuburu Naivalurua would score down low on the next possession, and he would continue to score all night. Two more layups would see the Mastodons on the wrong side of a 9-0 run to start the game. The Mastodons needed a spark, and the first source of ignition would be a corner three-pointer by Maximus Nelson to take the lid off the bucket for the ‘Dons. The flood gates would open from here for both teams.
Turburu Naivalurua would do his best attempt to have a “flu game”. After not practicing the past few days due to illness, Head Coach Greg Kampe did not know how much the 6’-6” senior forward would be able to give – he was able to give everything. After Rasheed Bello would hit the second three-pointer for the Mastodons, Naivalurua would respond with two more buckets giving him 10 points in the first 6:40 of the game. Naivalurua and Mukeba gave the Mastodons all sorts of trouble in the first game with the Mastodon’s Eric Mulder sidelined with injury.
The Mastodons would pull within striking distance for the first time since the start of the game thanks to senior Quinton Morton-Robinson settling back in at home drilling back-to-back three-pointers on consecutive possessions. A foul would send the game to the under 12-minute media time out with PFW trailing by 1 with a score of 16-17.
Oakland would do their best to hold on to their lead as long as possible with a basket from Mukeba and three made free throws by Nassim Mashhour, but a Trey Lewis three-pointer and a Rasheed Bello stepback jumper and three-pointer would give the Mastodons their first lead of the game 24-23 with 7:54 remaining in the half. Bello would start to take over on his senior night hitting two more three-pointers to go on an 11-0 run by himself. Oakland would respond with a 7-2 swing from Tuburu Naivalurua and Allen Mukeba, but the Grizzlies would never get closer than 2 points for the rest of the half. Jalen Jackson would score his first points of the game with a driving layup with 2:19 left in the half, and a Corey Hadnot II three-pointer and a Trey Lewis three-pointer would send the Mastodons into the locker room with a 7 point lead 35-42.
Second Half: The second half would have some early fireworks giving a preview of the good game to come down the stretch. Allen Mukeba would make a layup on the first possession of the half, and Jalen Jackson wouldn’t take 18 minutes to get his next basket as he would respond right away with a layup of his own 9 seconds later – Mukeba would get the last laugh of this back and forth getting another layup on the other end. The Grizzlies would chain together three straight baskets to tie the game at 47-47. Rasheed Bello would hit another three-pointer to send the game to the first media timeout of the half with the Mastodons up by three. Tuburu Naivalurua would be able get a dunk and jumper to fall after the timeout and the Grizzlies would retake the lead for the first time since the 7:54 mark in the first half.
The game would go back and forth until Rasheed Bello hit a jumper from just beyond free throw distance to give the Mastodons a 55-53 lead. This play would be followed by good defense and a steal from Jalen Jackson that would be topped by an incredible three-quarter court pass from Jackson to a sprinting Chandler Cuthrell for the fast break bucket. Corey Hadnot II would then make his late season case for the Horizon League Sixth Man of the Year award with a blowby layup that found the bottom of the net and two three-pointers that would send the Gates Sports Center into a frenzy and force Greg Kampe to use a timeout to try to stop the momentum with his team now down by 10. The timeout would be unable to stop the momentum as Chandler Cuthrell would continue the party by throwing down a rim rattling slam that would slam the door on any opportunity that the Golden Grizzlies had of getting back into this game.
Maximus Nelson and Quinton Morton-Robinson would both contribute again with three-pointers from each of them to bring the lead for the Mastodons up to 14 points. Jalen Jackson would save a little bit of his scoring average by tacking on five points on five consecutive made free throws with a minute left in the game. Listeners on ESPN+ were graced by the story telling of John Nolan of the HoriZone Roundtable’s own Matt Dudek and a shoutout of this very article! The last Jackson free throw would be the last score of the game with the Mastodons coming out on top by a score of 80-66.
Stats and Leaders: The Golden Grizzlies were lead by the two headed monster of Naivalurua and Mukeba. Naivalurua led all scorers with 23 points, and Mukeba added 21 points. The Mastodons were able to survive this attack from the two bigs by suppressing all other scorers on Oaklands roster. DQ Cole had 7 points, and Mashhour added 6 points. No other player for Oakland was above 5 points.
Mukeba and Naivalurua also led the Grizzlies in the rebounding category with 8 rebounds (3 OREB, 5 DREB) from Mukeba and 7 rebounds (2 OREB, 5 DREB) from Naivalurua.
The Grizzlies had possibly one of the worst three-point shooting nights in Head Coach Greg Kampe’s 41 year tenure as head coach. The Grizzlies shot an abysmal 1-21 (4.8%) from behind the arc. The Grizzlies may have only had less three-pointers made under Kampe when the three-point line simply did not exist in college basketball (added in 1986, Kampe’s third season at Oakland).
The Mastodons were led in scoring by the potential new front runner for Horizon League Player of the Year in Rasheed Bello. Bello scored a team-high 19 points while also facilitating the offense ending the game with 8 assists. The scoring was very balanced for the Mastodons as well. Jackson (14 PTS), Hadnot II (11 PTS), Cuthrell (10 PTS), Morton-Robinson (9 PTS), and Nelson (9 PTS) all made it difficult for Oakland to shut down the offense.
Though a quiet night in the scoring column, Eric Mulder proved to be valuable on the court grabbing a team-high 8 rebounds on the night. Chandler Cuthrell recorded 7 rebounds, and the next highest Mastodon was Morton-Robinson with 3. The Mastodons lost the rebound battle 28-35.
The Mastodons would shoot an impressive 17-38 (44.7%) from beyond the three-point line. Four Mastodons would score three or more three-pointers on the night. Overall, the Mastodons would shoot slightly better than the Grizzlies (48.3% – 45.8%).
What’s Next: Oakland will return back to the O’rena on Sunday, February 23 to face off against the current Horizon League leading Cleveland State Vikings. The Vikings, though in first, are not locked in to that first place positions only being 1.5 games ahead of the 4th and 5th place teams (PFW and YSU). The game will tip off at 3:00pm ET broadcasted on ESPN+.
The Mastodons will play their final home game on Thursday, February 27 against Northern Kentucky. The Mastodons will need to win against NKU and the season finale against Cleveland state to solidify their first-round bye and home game in the Horizon League Quarterfinals. The game will tip off at 7:00pm ET broadcasted on ESPN+.
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