Oakland falls in Horizon title game, 80-69
Entering Tuesday’s Horizon League championship game as the underdog to top-seeded Cleveland State, Oakland University was hoping to finally be a beneficiary of the parity that has defined the Horizon League tournament in recent seasons.
The upset never materialized, however, as the Golden Grizzlies were unable to duplicate their defensive success from the prior night and fell 80-69 in the program’s first-ever trip to the conference title game.
“Losing sucks,” Oakland coach Greg Kampe said. “Unfortunately, for every good team, that’s going to happen except for one team. Ours ended a little bit sooner than we would have liked. My hat is off to Cleveland State. They just played better than we did. They played at a championship level tonight.”
Struggling to knock down open shots and gain consistent traction offensively, Oakland could never trim its deficit to fewer than eight points in the second half.
Neither team shot well from behind the arc, each finishing below 30 percent, though Oakland’s struggles were more profound as it was forced to rely heavily on 3-pointers with 38 attempts in its dwindling bid for a comeback.
In the first half, the lead changed hands eight times in the
opening 10 minutes of action before Cleveland State settled into the lead and expanded it to 12 points, 40-28, by intermission.
Oakland briefly sat within one point, down 27-26, but over the remaining 4:47 of the first half, the Golden Grizzlies were snakebitten and outscored 13-2 heading into the break as turnovers became an issue.
“From the 15-minute mark to the end of the first
half, that’s what really destroyed us,” Kampe said. “We didn’t handle that 15 minutes very well. Not from a defensive standpoint and not from a mental standpoint. We kind of panicked. I’ll take the blame for that.”
Little changed in the second half as Cleveland State continued to generate higher percentage shots, resulting in an eyepopping 64-18 disparity of points in the paint.
“I thought in the second half we battled our tails off and did everything we could. It was just too big of a deficit to overcome on
a night we couldn’t make a shot,” Kampe said.
Oakland was led offensively by junior Jalen Moore’s 22 points and seven assists. Rashad Williams finished with 15 points, while Zion Young contributed 14 off the bench.
Cleveland State’s Torrey Patton was named Most Valuable Player of the tournament, recording a doubledouble of 23 points and 10 boards in the title game.
The win earned the Vikings (19-7) their first bid to the NCAA Tournament since 2009, while denying the Golden Grizzlies of their first March Madness appearance since 2011.
Oakland’s season concluded with a 13-17 record.
Forced to quarantine due to COVID-19 in the weeks leading up to the start of the season, the Golden Grizzlies lost each of their first nine games, albeit against a very difficult non-conference schedule. The team fared better in Horizon League play, performing well enough to earn the No. 3 seed in the tournament.
With sixth-man Kevin Kangu the only senior on the roster, Oakland expects to contend seriously for the conference title again next season.