You are here: Home » Colleges / Other » Campus Clips » Oakland cooks up some ‘Rice’, advances to CollegeInsider semifinals

Oakland cooks up some ‘Rice’, advances to CollegeInsider semifinals

Dan Stickradt | March 21, 2012 | Comments (1)

By DAN FENNER

CORRESPONDENT
Special to NorthOaklandSports.com

ROCHESTER — Three games, three wins.
latest victim of Oakland’s inspired run to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament semifinals was Rice University on Tuesday night, as the Grizzlies survived to win, 77-70, thanks to the dominance they displayed in the first half.
Oakland was a team possessed in the first 20 minutes, shooting a red hot 56.7 percent and finishing the half with a 48-30 lead that it would need most of to fend off the Owls after the break.
Rice steadily chipped away at its deficit and came as close as three points down with 6:39 to play before the Grizzlies pulled out of their tailspin and closed out the game strong.
The victory gave Oakland (20-15) a berth into the tournament’s final four — an achievement that coach Greg Kampe was proud of, viewing it as something more than a consolation prize in light of the team’s early exit from its conference tournament two weeks ago.
“I’m as happy as you can be,” Kampe said. “I told (the players) in there, we made it to a final four. And there will be some people that say, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s not The Big Dance.’ It may be a little dance, but I don’t care if it’s the old folks home dance. We’re in a final four.
“No team from our league has ever done that before. This is a national tournament (with) a team from (Los Angeles), a team from Manhattan, from the farthest south to the farthest north. There’s only four left and we’re one of those four.”
Oakland also reached the 20-win plateau for the fourth-straight year and will have a chance to add another victory later in the week against the winner of Wednesday’s quarterfinal game between Utah State and Loyola Marymount.
Though they fell short of a return to the NCAA Tournament, the Grizzles are the last Summit League team remaining among five that qualified for postseason play.
“That’s been forgotten about,” Hamilton said of the conference tournament loss. “We’re trying to focus on this national championship. It will be the first one in Oakland University’s history, as well as in the Summit League.”
Hamilton, the nation’s leading scorer, recorded 18 of his 30 points in the second half Tuesday night, doing just enough to continue adding points to Oakland’s side of the scoreboard to temper the Owls’ comeback. The senior guard has now score 29 points or more in 10-consecutive games dating back to the regular season.
The Grizzlies’ offensive output was furious from the get-go, with points coming on their first five possessions and a double-digit lead established less than seven minutes into the game.
“Our first half was flawless,” Kampe said. “It was textbook basketball and it was Oakland basketball against a Conference USA school.”
But a 12-2 run by Rice to open the second half made for, at times, a tense second half.
“What I tried to do during that run was rest Reggie because I knew that we just had to be one point ahead when it was over. I don’t care (because) there’s no style points and nobody is going to remember the halftime score,” Kampe said.
“We really just stuck with dribble-drive and I let (Tamir Jackson) guard Reggie and told Reggie to stand out (on the perimeter) and tried to get some other guys to score because the last thing we could have had was Reggie wasting all his energy and (Rice) still making their run. We had Reggie fresh down the stretch.”
For the first time in 17 games this season, the Owls (19-16) lost when out-rebounding their opponent.
Oakland also had an unusually cold shooting night from 3-point range, connecting on just 4-of-18 long-range shots.
“Three-pointers just weren’t going down,” Hamilton said. “Me and (Travis) Bader just had to look at each other and laugh thinking, ‘Wow.’ But that just shows what type of team we are and that we can win without the 3-ball.”
Redshirt freshman Corey Petros contributed 16 points and seven rebounds, while junior Drew Valentine added 13 more points for OU.
The Grizzlies are expected to have to travel for the first time in the CIT for their semifinal game on either Friday or Saturday.