On Thursday, Feb. 9, the men’s basketball team defeated the Green Bay Phoenix at the Kress Center for the second meeting of the season.  

Jalen Moore got down to business within 30 seconds of the game, making a tough jumpshot right away. Chris Conway was putting in work outside of the paint with a nice baseline jumper getting Oakland’s offense rolling as well. 

The Green Bay Phoenix were slow with their offense but eventually got themselves situated and found themselves up by one. Trey Townsend got his night going with a top-of-the-key jumper to regain the lead, 11-10 with 10 minutes to go. 

Moore, with quick hands, had a steal that allowed him to get the easy layup. Osei Price’s penetration collapsed the defense, where he found Keaton Hervey to hit the 3-pointer and Oakland was up by four, at a 16-12 score. 

Oakland read right through Green Bay’s offense and were able to score six points off of five Green Bay turnovers. Blake Lampman side-stepped, faked the defender and knocked down a 3-pointer, which he does best. 

Conway is a long post player who went up high and was already 3-3 with six points and contributed a total of eight points for the night. The Grizzlies were up 13. 

Townsend, who is always showcasing his talents, had a nice two-handed dunk for their last possession that pretty much did it. Green Bay got a late whistle that sent them to the line for a pair of free throws, but the Golden Grizzlies were still ahead at half, 29-18. 

Green Bay only made six field goals in 23 attempts, and it was clear they needed a new game plan. Sure enough, they came out differently and were aggressive.

Oakland didn’t score for two and a half minutes. A Green Bay blocking foul was called, and Moore’s three-point play helped end the flurry that the Grizzlies were in. 

With 15:24 left in the game, Lampman made another 3-pointer and there wasn’t much the Phoenix could do after that point. The Grizzlies gave no ground. 

Green Bay went on a 16-8 run but got cold and lost their energy and the Grizzlies put this one away, 59-47. 

Townsend finished with a double-double again. It was his third straight, ending with 23 points and 12 rebounds. Moore had 10 and Lampman nine. 

It was a low scoring game, but Coach Greg Kampe really liked how his team performed defensively. 

“We guarded — boy, did we guard them,” Kampe said. “They struggled, but we guarded them really well. We didn’t give them anything easy other than a three-minute period to start the second half where we came out and we were still in the locker room, it looked like, and I got to give them credit.”

“They saw that, they pounced on it, got back in the game,” Kampe added. “We made a little substitution, changed our offense. We scored three straight baskets, four straight baskets. We had 16 straight stops in the game in the second half.”

“We had a bunch in the first half, too, but in the second half, we had 16 straight stops — that’s borderline ridiculous,” Kampe said. “I’m really, really pleased with our defense and the way we played and we had to survive this after their win Monday. We had to survive it, and we did.”

The Golden Grizzlies will now take on IUPUI for the Equality and Inclusion game on Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. at the O’rena.