COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL: Late threes help Oakland rally past Valparaiso
BY DAN STICKRADT
SENIOR EDITOR
Dan.Stickradt@northoaklandsports.com
Twitter: @LocalSportsFans
ROCHESTER HILLS — Leave it to Travis Bader.
The senior guard, one of the nation’s all-time great three-point shooters, twined a pair of late triples in helping Oakland University rally back from down 15 points in the second half and topple visiting Valparaiso, 75-70, in OU’s first-ever home game in the Horizon League.
Bader, who is on course to make more triples than any other college player in history, displayed the resolve that standout players often do, making clutch shots down the stretch.
“I thought Valpo was the better team for much of the game. We won because I have players who make plays. We hit some big shots down the stretch,” said OU coach Greg Kampe. “I thought we should have had the ball in (Travis Bader’s) hands more. He made a couple of huge threes.”
Bader finished 5-for-10 from 3-point range and scored 20 points for OU while logging all 40 minutes. He canned a three-pointer with 3:32 left with a defender in his face that gave OU its first lead of the second half at 67-66.
Duke Mondy, who also nailed a late three-pointer with 2:25 left that put Oakland up 70-66, finished with a game-high 24 points.
Valparaiso (9-8, 1-1) forged back into a 70-70 tie after Oakland’s Corey Petros could not convert at the foul line and the Crusaders’ Alec Peters canned a jumper with 1:11 left.
Bader rescued OU by nailing another three with 50 seconds left to put Oakland up for good at 73-70. Mondy also converted a pair of freebies with 28 ticks left to help seal the deal.
It marked the fourth straight time that this rivalry game was decided by five points or less and the latest in a long list of epic clashes between the two dating back to the late 1990s.
“I don’t know why that is, but we’ve had some great games between Valpo and Oakland,” said Kampe. “This was classic OU-Valpo. I think this is six of seven that we have won. It wasn’t always this way. Valpo won the first 16 games between us, even though we had a ton of close games.”
LaVonte Dority scored 20 with five assists to lead five Valpo players in double figures. Peters and Jordan Coleman scored 12 apiece, Lexus Williams added 11 points and Keith Carter scored 10 for the Crusaders.
Valparaiso clawed back from an early 12-9 deficit at the 14:30 mark of the first half and shot 53.6 percent from the floor over the opening 20 minutes en route to a 44-33 halftime advantage.
The Crusaders led by as many as 15 points on two separate occasions in the contest. The second time Valpo led 57-42 with 12:44 remaining, before Oakland (6-11, 1-1) slowly whittled away at the deficit and eventually took the lead inside four minutes.
“I thought we played some really good basketball for about 32 minutes, and then Oakland outplayed us in the last eight minutes or so,” said Valparaiso coach Bryce Drew. “Oakland won the game. We did not lose the game. They made some big shots when they needed to. We’ll chalk this one up as a learning experience. A couple of plays could have gone differently and we would have won the game.”
Petros added nine points and eight rebounds and Tommie McCune chipped in with eight points for Oakland, which is 65-10 in its previous 75 games inside the friendly confines of the O’rena.
Valparaiso leads the all-time series 17-6.
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