PITTSBURGH — Forty-eight hours before the Oakland Golden Grizzlies became America’s Cinderella team, Greg Kampe said his program was playing with house money in the NCAA tournament, no matter what its stay in the postseason looked like.
Well, that was before the 14-seed Golden Grizzlies knocked off 3-seed Kentucky at PPG Paints Arena, 80-76, behind a performance for the ages from graduate transfer Jack Gohlke, who scored a career-high 32 points and made 10 3-pointers (one shy of the tournament record) in a March Madness upset that won’t soon be forgotten.
Now, David has already slayed Goliath, and the Golden Grizzlies have the support of the nation behind them, to the point their university website crashed on Thursday evening and there were $8,000 in merchandise purchases from Louisville supporters alone.
Even after the first part of the dream actually happened, OU doesn’t feel like a team on a fairy-tale ride, but a cohesive group potentially at the beginning of something even more special. It will find out when it tips off Saturday’s Round of 32 game against N.C. State.
As Kampe has tried to prepare, he has been busy. Very busy, responding to more than 1,000 messages and doing dozens of interviews in the hours between the game and his next NCAA-scheduled availability.
There’s no rest for the weary.
“Yeah, I haven’t been to bed, I haven’t slept,” Kampe said. “I got a job. This is — I mean this is the most important time of the year in this job, and I’m lucky that — what are there, 32 teams left in the country doing it? And there’s 360 coaches. So 300 coaches aren’t doing it. So I better do it and I better do it well. I owe my players that.”
Fast facts
Matchup: 14-seed Oakland (24-11) vs. 11-seed North Carolina State (23-14), South region second round.
Tipoff: 7:10 p.m. Saturday; PPG Paints Arena, Pittsburgh.
TV: TBS.
Line: Wolfpack by 5½.
At stake: Winner advances to Sweet 16 in Dallas on Friday vs. winner of Marquette and Colorado.
READ MORE: Oakland and Jack Gohlke are more than a Cinderella. They represent all of us.
Scouting report
Cole-hearted: Like their coach, the Oakland players who met with media oozed confidence on Friday afternoon.
One was, of course, Jack Gohlke, whose name will forever be synonymous with March. The other was senior DQ Cole, someone whose legend will only grow for his performance against Kentucky.
Not only did he score 12 points and grab eight rebounds — one of his offensive boards led to Gohlke’s final 3-pointer and gave OU a five-point lead with less than five minutes to play — but five of his points came in the final 80 seconds, including the game-sealing 3 with 29 seconds left.
As the two discussed their preparation for N.C. State, they couldn’t help but refer over and over to the bond of the team, which they say began with a trip to Europe over the summer, and only grew as the weeks went on.
“It’s like, I would say love at first sight,” Cole smiled. “It was like we went to Italy and it was just — we hit it off from there. Everybody on the team loved each other, and we got this saying between the players, it’s like we’ll die for each other. So it’s like anything, whether it’s defensive slides, free throw at the end of practice, we may have to run sprints, whatever it is, we’re all going hard and we’re all willing to die for each other.
“And we take that on the court, and it shows.”
Burns-ing down the house: But friendship won’t help this group win the new biggest game in Oakland history. Instead, it will take another clean performance. The Wolfpack are led by guard DJ Horne (16.9 points per game) who transferred from Arizona State, but arguably their most impactful player who is a fan favorite is the other DJ; DJ Burns Jr., a 6-foot-10, 275-pound behemoth who averages 12.5 points and 3.9 rebounds per game — Gohlke called him “a force” Friday.
“We obviously gotta limit his touches,” he said. “Especially deep in the paint because he’s going to kill us if he catches the ball down there.”
N.C. State also has a pair of guards — Jayden Taylor (11.6) and Casey Morsell (11.4) — who’ve averaged double-figures in points this season. But their first-round game against Texas Tech was a reminder to not forget about their pair of 6-foot-10 forwards who are the fifth and sixth options: Ben Middlebrooks (21 points against the Red Raiders) and Mohamed Diarra (17 points and 12 rebounds).
Although Kampe respects the challenge they present, he does believe his team has at least one advantage in its unique matchup zone.
“If you’re going to play Oakland, we’ve got 77 set plays,” he said. “How many of those are you going to prepare for in one day? Again, when you play zone, they can only do a few things, and we’ve seen it all. So we think we know what they’re going to do. It’s more of a personnel scout. All right, what does this guy do? We can’t give him this. This guy only goes left. If he goes right, he’s pulling up. If he goes left, he’s going all the way. All those things, my staff watched all their games.
“I think we’re very well prepared, and I think we’ll be able to guard them. It’s going to come down to what team makes shots and who makes the plays when it counts.”
Men in the middle: The gameplan against Kentucky, the nation’s top 3-point shooting team, was to force them to catch the ball 10-12 feet away and make them take in-between 2s, but don’t expect OU to allow the Wolfpack to get the ball inside with anywhere near the same frequency; at least, not by design.
In order to earn a win, Trey Townsend, the Horizon League Player of the Year (who had 17 points and 12 rebounds against Kentucky), will need another big game, and seniors Chris Conway and Rocket Watts will need to show the same poise they did Thursday.
Dog-tired: If Oakland has its druthers, it’s going to get into a track meet with the Wolfpack, a team that wouldn’t have made the NCAAs without making history last week by winning five games in five days in the ACC tournament.
Tipoff Saturday will bring seven games in 12 days. Kampe is counting on that to be a factor.
“They had to play five games in five days and turn around three days later and play, and two days after that play again,” he said. “If we’re smart, we’re going to play fast, right? We want to make them run. That big dude is big! Right? And they got a lot of big dudes. We want to make them run. And at some point they’re human, aren’t they? I mean, at some point, it’s gotta kick in.
“So if we can keep the pressure up and we get them to the point that their legs are tired, it’s hard to make jump shots when your legs are tired, and to beat a zone you gotta make jump shots.”
Prediction
Nothing about what Oakland did looked like an upset vs. Kentucky. It had a historic performance from Gohlke, but also forced the Wildcats into the shots it wanted them to take, for the most part, and, most importantly, always had an answer. This game will come down to if Oakland keeping the ball out of the paint, where N.C. State has a size and depth advantage. But as Kampe said, OU’s zone is hard enough to prepare for in a week, never mind with less than 48 hours turnaround. Oakland is 8-1 this season in games decided by five points or fewer, a number that improves as a historic run continues. The pick: Oakland 77, N.C. State 72.
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