Third time’s a charm, right?
In Oakland’s third buy game of the season against a Power Six opponent, the Golden Grizzlies defeated the Xavier Musketeers, 78-76. Many mid-major teams are lucky to compete in any of their buy games against Power Six schools, but Oakland has not only competed in all three of its buy games so far, it has stolen a win from a team that was a No. 3 seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament.
Essentially, a buy game is one in which a bigger, Power Six school (Xavier, in this instance) pays a smaller, mid-major school (Oakland) a large sum of money (normally around $100,000) to come to its arena to fill out its nonconference schedule. The bigger school typically pounds the mid-major school into submission, while the smaller school collects its check and learns what it can work on going forward into the rest of the season.
Oakland visited Ohio State and Illinois is back-to-back buy games earlier this season, but head coach Greg Kampe’s Golden Grizzlies came up short in both contests against the Big Ten foes.
It was clear Oakland had the talent and personnel to compete with some big-brand teams — Oakland was in tight, one-point affairs with both teams at halftime — but it couldn’t quite get over the hump and pull off the upset.
Until Monday night.
Trey Townsend led the way for Oakland in the win over Xavier with a dominant 28-point, six-rebound and seven-assist performance. He shot 11-18 from the floor and 6-10 from the free throw line as he carried Oakland to the two-point victory.
As many Golden Grizzlies struggled with foul trouble throughout the majority of the night, Townsend was the constant variable. Chris Conway, who had a really solid night with 15 points, fouled out, and so did guard Tone Hunter, but Townsend continued to dominate in the low post.
The occasional offensive trip down the floor featured Jack Gohlke attempting a 3-point shot — he finished 4-13 from distance on the night — but Townsend did most of the damage.
Late in the game, Gohlke fooled multiple Musketeer defenders with a pump fake, and he drilled a triple to give Oakland a three-point lead — one that Kampe’s team didn’t relinquish.
Townsend and Rocket Watts drilled jumpers late in the game to keep Xavier at bay.
Leading by two points with just three seconds to play, Townsend had an opportunity to seal the game at the free throw line. He had two shots — make both, and Xavier goes home with a loss. After shooting 6-8 from the charity stripe in the first 39 minutes and 57 seconds of the game, Townsend missed both shots.
Xavier grabbed the rebound, guard Dailyn Swain dribbled up the court and fired of a half-court shot that just barely caromed off the rim.
With the huge victory, Oakland improves to 4-3 overall on the season. The Horizon League season now awaits as Oakland is set to take on Detroit Mercy in the league-opener on Wednesday night in Detroit at Calihan Hall.
Looking even further ahead, exactly three weeks from Oakland’s huge upset over Xavier, the Golden Grizzlies will have an opportunity to pull off another huge upset as they head to East Lansing to take on a struggling Michigan State team that began the year ranked No. 4 in the country.
