What does NCAA tourney run mean for Oakland’s staying power?
Saturday night in the belly of PPG Paints Arena, there were a whole lot of hugs, and tears, and solemn faces. But, eventually, there were some smiles, too.
Oakland men’s basketball saw its season come to an end in crushing fashion, 79-73 in overtime to N.C. State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. But it didn’t take too long for the players, the coaches, the administrators, even the Horizon League commissioner, to put the whole, wild, magical ride — from a season-opening exhibition loss to Division II Walsh in November to a prime-time stunner over Kentucky in March — in its perspective.
“I’m just glad and proud of this team for what we’ve done … for this university,” said senior star Trey Townsend, the Oxford native who had two double-doubles in two NCAA Tournament games, and had four double-doubles in five postgame games, including the Horizon League tournament. “I think people now, hopefully, will know that we’re not in California, and we’re from Michigan now.
“For me, I always wanted to come here and hang banners and make these memories and put Oakland on the map. And to say that we did that, it’s such a special thing, and I’m just so happy for my guys.”
Oakland (24-12), in head coach Greg Kampe’s 40th season, won its first Horizon League tournament championship, and won its first Round of 64 game in the NCAA Tournament.
And it brought a whole lot of exposure to Kampe, who had reporters hanging on his ever word in Pittsburgh; he might as well have been giving TED talks; to his players, including breakout NCAA Tournament darling Jack Gohlke, the senior guard who scored a pair of NIL deals between NCAA Tournament games after dropping in 10 3’s and 32 points on Kentucky; and the university, which saw its website crash after the opening victory over Kentucky. Hilariously, Oakland sold $8,000 in school swag to folks with Louisville-area credit cards after the win over Kentucky.
The visibility on all fronts was massive. The 8076 win over Kentucky, the 14th power-conference win for Kampe and, no doubt, the biggest, drew an average of more than 6 million viewers on CBS, the largest audience for an NCAA Tournament opening-round
game since 2019.
“Oakland just had a twohour commercial on CBS last night,” Horizon League commissioner Julie Roe Lach told The News on Friday. “This is a breakthrough moment for Oakland; it’s also a breakthrough moment for our league.”
Oakland’s win over Kentucky was the first Round of 64 win for the Horizon League since Butler went to back-to-back national-championship games in 2010 and 2011. Butler eventually moved to the Atlantic 10, and then the Big East.
Oakland, of course, isn’t going anywhere, though several players are moving on, including Gohlke, senior guard Blake Lampman (Haslett) and almost certainly Townsend, who has another year of eligibility left because of the COVID year, but is almost assuredly set to use that with a power-five school. He’s set to graduate from Oakland this spring, and stands to negotiate a six-figure deal to play for another program. Rocket Watts, a senior guard from Detroit, also is out of eligibility.
But, what a way to go out. The Golden Grizzlies were treated like kings this week in Pittsburgh, with police escorts from the team hotel to the arena (despite them being separated by maybe a 9-iron); with raucous hotel-lobby pep rallies, which swelled so much from Game 1 to Game 2, opposing teams’ fans and hotel staff were very impressed; with five-star meals; with autograph and selfie seekers; even, with Gohlke and Townsend, NIL deals. They also took the band, cheerleaders, fans (both on site in Pittsburgh and at the watch parties at RJ.’s Pub and CJ Mahoney’s), family and the basketball staff on one sweet ride.
Sure, the loss to N.C. State sting Saturday night, and it stung Sunday morning as the team motor-coached (in first-class accommodations) back from Pittsburgh. Oakland didn’t get a shot off on the final possession with the game tied, and that’ll haunt Kampe, who took the blame, even though in the locker room afterward, players called B.S.
There’s no blame being passed around among the Golden Grizzlies, and there are no regrets, either.
“It’s very disappointing that it’s over,” said Gohlke, who was at Division II Hillsdale last year, and this year is almost a lock to make the post-NCAA Tournament “One Shining Moment” montage. “But I think we did a really good job of soaking up our time with each other and making the absolute most of it.”
Kampe had been to the Division I NCAA Tournament three times before, but not since 2011. He remembered it being a grand time, but this last week was even better than he remembered.
He talked before the Kentucky game, the blue blood out of the SEC, and then again before N.C. State, the ACC tournament champion, how this experience was going to change his players’ lives.
Gohlke was Exhibit A, after he became just the fifth player to make 10 3’s in an NCAA Tournament game. His Instagram following went from 500 to 50,000, a merch-line dropped, and there he was an hour after the season-ending loss to N.C. State, taking selfie after selfie with fans at PPG Paints Arena, while the day’s second game, Creighton-Oregon, was going on behind him.
He was Horizon League sixth man of the year, and when he came into the game early Saturday, the crowd, Oakland fans and otherwise, roared.