Often times when a mid-major takes the court in a buy game the only thing to do is look for signs. A nice performance from a player, good numbers in a certain area of the game, etc.
While there were certainly signs that the 2026-2027 iteration of the Oakland men’s basketball team will be a factor late in the year in the Horizon League, head coach Greg Kampe felt like there was a little meat left on the bone in the season-opening 84-68 loss to reigning national champion Michigan.
“For us to win these games we have to be perfect,” Kampe said. “We have to do the little things and make shots, and we didn’t do those things.”
“We get it down to 7 and foul a three point shooter, we have runaway opportunities and throw it out of bounds,” Kampe said. “In my opinion, the key play in the game was at 18-13. They shoot a transition three and we don’t check the shooter. They get a second opportunity and after that timeout they go on an 18-2 run or whatever it was. I’ve seen enough of these games to know that rebound is the difference between us going up 25-13 before they figure it out and what happened.”
However, the positives were not lost on Kampe.
“We out-rebounded the defending national champions in their house and had 21 offensive rebounds; that’s something to like,” Kampe said. “We shot more free throws than they shot. That’s something that we want to be a staple of our defense and we just did that, at Michigan.”
The rebounding effort was a team wide one, but Chris Fields Jr. impressed in his debut as a Golden Grizzly. He managed 18 points and 10 boards, five offensive. He was also able to draw fouls, shooting 8-of-12 from the floor and fouling out Michigan center JP Estrella in only 21 minutes.
Right behind Fields in the scoring column was Nassim Mashhour. It was Mashhour’s first game back since his season-ending knee injury in early December last year and he looked 100%. Mashhour had 14 first-half points to keep the Golden Grizzlies in the game early. He ended with 16 points and four rebounds.
The other Golden Grizzly in double figures was Ryder Bradley. Bradley tallied 12 points his first Division 1 game before fouling out in 26 minutes. He also grabbed six rebounds and handled a good amount of the point guard duties. Bradley’s versatility was on full display through exhibition season and continued into the real thing last night.
RJ Taylor scored three points in 17 minutes. He was on the bench for long stretches and never really found a rhythm. His head coach was not shaken about the starting point guards tough go.
“I think there is a lot of pressure on him to be the next great Oakland point guard and he feels that responsibility,” Kampe said. “He will be. I am not worried about RJ Taylor.”
Belal El Shakery only made one of his five shots, but looked much more active than he did in exhibition season. El Shakery is recovering from a lower leg injury that he suffered in October.
Will Kassi was the team’s leading scorer during the foreign trip in Canada, but has struggled so far this fall. He only made one of his six shots in 18 minutes, totaling four points.
Oakland now embarks on what is sure to be a grueling test. It begins this weekend, with Stanford on Friday and UC Santa Barbara on Saturday. Kampe hopes his team is ready.
“I was probably a little more vocal and positive early on tonight because I have to get us through this stretch. It’s probably stupid and dumb that I’ve done this but I have been open about why it is what we have to do.”
Stanford opened up its season with a hard-fought win over Eastern Washington on opening night.
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