Oakland Opens Exhibition Slate With 111-77 Win Over Alma

For the first time in almost eight months, there was basketball being played on the Blacktop.

The Golden Grizzlies raced out to an early lead, and continued that race throughout the full 40 minutes of play, cruising to a 111-77 win over D3 opponent Alma.

The race, was the main takeaway tonight.

“Last year we played around 65 possessions,” Greg Kampe said after. “Tonight, we were up around 85.”

That is certainly a change from recent years. Per kenpom, the Golden Grizzlies ranked 337th in tempo last year and haven’t been in the top 100 since 2018. If last night was any indication, that will change.

The pace led to a barrage of points. Warren Marshall IV led the Golden Grizzlies with 20 points, making four threes, and Isaac Garrett was perhaps the standout performer of the night. Garrett posted 18 points, 12 rebounds, five assists and three blocks in only 25 minutes of action. He was able to showcase his full array of skills in part because his fellow projected front court starters, Buru Naivalurua and Michael Houge were sidelined due to ankle injuries.

There is no timetable on either’s return, but Naivalurua seemed further along in recovery than Houge.

Even with those injuries, the Golden Grizzlies still played nine guys 13 minutes or more, something that should be expected this season.

“If we are going to play at this kind of pace, we are going to have the substitute like that,” Kampe said postgame. He has been on record saying his team can go a full 10 deep this offseason, and if the tempo keeps up, they will put that number to the test throughout the course of the season. Not to mention if injury bug keeps popping up.

Many of the guys who saw action last night showed a nice scoring prowess, but one key was watching how the point guards flew the ball up and around. Brody Robinson only shot 1-5 from three, but was still impressive, scoring 13 points with seven assists and four steals. Khoi Thurmon went 8-of-8 from the line for 12 points as well.

Nassim Mashhour and Brett White were the other two Golden Grizzlies in double figures. White went 3-of-6 from deep and showed he and Mashhour might be huge keys in Oakland turning around their shooting slump from a year ago.

As a team, Oakland managed 24 assists on their 35 buckets, while only turning the ball over nine times. They made 12 threes and shot 35. The 35 attempts would have been a season high last year, and the 12 makes was only eclipsed once in last season’s campaign.

Oakland will now turn their attention to their exhibition finale on October 30th, against NAIA Rochester Christian University. There have been some very close games in the recent history of that series, it will be interesting to see where Oakland is compared to those close games. That game is slated for 7pm Eastern Time and will be broadcast on ESPN+.