Men’s basketball dominates in blowout win over Milwaukee

The+Oakland+mens+basketball+teams+bench+celebrates+as+they+defeat+Milwaukee+in+a+rout+on+Jan.+9.+

Maggie Willard

The Oakland men’s basketball team’s bench celebrates as they defeat Milwaukee in a rout on Jan. 9.

The Golden Grizzlies men’s basketball team has won each of their last four games, with the most recent win being a blowout over the Milwaukee Panthers on Sunday at the O’rena.

The Golden Grizzlies came out blazing hot, as they shot a whopping 54% from the field and 35% from the three-point line. As they would jump out to a gigantic lead early on, the Milwaukee Panthers would do the absolute opposite. The Panthers, who were without star freshman Pat Baldwin Jr., would suffer from shooting woes early on in the first period, but would eventually right the ship and end the period shooting 54% field and 42% from the three point line. 

The first period of the game would end with the Golden Grizzlies up 15 points, leading with a score of 47-32. This 15-point lead would not even be the largest lead that the Golden Grizzlies would hold that night, as they would keep their insanely hot hand flowing into the second period. 

The Panthers, on the other hand, would end up falling into a deep pit of a shooting slump. They would come out of the half and shoot 10- 27 from the field [a percentage of 37% overall], and shoot an abysmal 1- 7 from three-point land [bad enough to notch a 14% rate from three]. 

The Golden Grizzlies would come out and take advantage of this, and although they would also shoot worse than their first period performance [with their shooting percentages dropping off a whole 14% from the field and 9% from the three between periods, their performance would still be better than that of the Panthers, leading to them outscoring them in both periods. 

The poor performance by the Panthers coupled with the somewhat steady shooting of the Golden Grizzlies would lead to a 28-point lead in the second period. The Panthers would never know the feeling of holding a lead in this game, as they would trail the Golden Grizzlies for the entire run time of the game and end up chalking this game up in the loss column with a score of 86-65. 

Overall, the Golden Grizzlies would destroy the Panthers because of the hot start they got off to in the first period. They would also win the turnover battle, scoring 21 points off of turnovers as opposed to the Panthers four points. The two teams would be just as dominant as each other in the paint, with the Panthers scoring 30 and the Golden Grizzlies scoring 28 points. 

The Panthers bench would do their best to help claw their team back into the bench, scoring 28 of the teams 65 points, but their efforts were all for naught. Both teams would have a physical battle out there, and that battle would show in the foul count for both teams [the Grizzlies would end the game with 18 personal fouls and the Panthers would end with 20]. 

This win will surely give the Golden Grizzlies momentum heading into their next game of the season against Cleveland State University on Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. in Cleveland, Ohio.