OU v. Davenport: The exhibition game

Monday, Nov. 6 was the Oakland University men’s basketball team’s last exhibition game this season. Davenport University tried to keep up with defense, but could not keep up. The Golden Grizzlies claimed victory with an ending score of 102-61.

”We made a very good team look very average tonight,” said men’s basketball Head Coach, Greg Kampe.

One of the Golden Grizzlies’ new players to keep an eye on is James Beck. He is a freshman and has shown great promise. During the game, he scored nine times and earned 14 points in the process. His height of 6’8″ gives him strong agility in different plays and strong defensive skill.

Despite his freshman status, he was given 22 minutes of play time; Beck and Kendrick Nunn shared the most amount of minutes playing throughout the game. Beck feels he could be a major contributor this season.

“My role this year is just when I get in the game, I stay on board, go out there and give it all I got,” Beck said.

He also said collegiate level basketball is very different than that of high school, as it is more fast paced.

Another player to keep on the radar is Nunn. He managed to score six out of eight attempted three pointers, and 11 out of 14 field goals. Nunn is a returning senior and plans on taking a leadership role this season.

“I am very vocal with my teammates, I take criticism and give criticism to players that need it,” he said.

The whole team played hard throughout the entirety of the game, even with the full knowledge it was only exhibition. Brock started and continued to play in the game for a solid 16 minutes. He is currently unable to play for the first four games this season but has confirmed that he is returning to the team for a sophomore season.

However, the team as a whole played everyone on the bench and defeated Davenport by 41 points. Eight Golden Grizzlies managed at least one 3-point shot, shooting around 63 percent from behind the arc.

“We had three exhibition games, I got everybody to start, and I got to see every player play meaningful minutes,” Kampe said.

Moving forward into the season, Kampe does not see himself going deep into the bench. Kampe listed off a number of very talented players and was honest that many of his players were not going to see a lot of minutes of play.

“When you have players like that [Brock, Walker, etc.] you play them,” he said.