March 7, 2016
Kay Felder and Oakland stormed back from 13 points down in the semifinals of the Horizon League Tournament at the Joe Louis Arena, but a last-minute, game-winning basket sent Felder and No. 2 seed Oakland home. The Golden Grizzlies lost, 59-55.
March 4, 2017
In the same building 362 days later, Jalen Hayes and Martez Walker combined for 49 points, but No. 1 seed Oakland was ousted from the conference tournament yet again, this time at the hands of No. 9 seed Youngstown State on a last-second layup. The Golden Grizzlies lost, 81-80.
March 5, 2018
The venue changed the following year to Little Caesars Arena, but the outcome stayed the same. Oakland went nearly nine minutes without scoring a point, but it still found itself up a point with 43 seconds to go. Then, Cleveland State’s Tyree Appleby made a jumper, and the eighth-seeded Vikings upset fourth-seeded Oakland. The Golden Grizzlies lost, 44-43.
March 11, 2019
In the Horizon League Tournament semifinals the following year, No. 3 seed Oakland stormed back from a 10-point second-half deficit to take a two-point lead over No. 2 seed Northern Kentucky with 10 seconds to go. NKU’s Drew McDonald then hit a 3-pointer with four seconds to go, and Oakland was eliminated yet again. The Golden Grizzlies lost, 64-63.
Coaching college basketball isn’t for the faint of heart, and Greg Kampe certainly doesn’t fall into that category. Four consecutive conference tournament losses by a combined seven points might send other 60-something-year-old coaches that have been at their respective schools for 30-plus years into retirement.
But not Kampe.
Sure, the losses were excruciatingly painful, but he persevered, and he never made it about himself.
“I don’t run from adversity,” Kampe said on Tuesday night. “And I think there’s a lot of people that wanted me to, and I had some great teams. I’ve had five NBA players, and three of them didn’t make it [to the NCAA Tournament]… Four years in a row, we lost on a last-second shot. It’s heartbreaking.
“But when it comes down to just one weekend, and so many things can go wrong that what it takes to get there, it’s so hard and it’s so gut-wrenching, and it eats you alive.”
Kampe recalled one particular moment from 2016 that he struggled to stomach.
“It’s not about me. It’s about going in that locker room after a loss and seeing Kay Felder laying on the floor crying. And the fans don’t see that. They think, ‘Oh, we didn’t go [to the NCAA Tournament]… What it means to [the fans] is nothing — the fans go on and cheer for the next year. That was it for Kay Felder. That was his last chance.”
It wasn’t just Felder, though. The same could be said for every Oakland senior the past 12 seasons that never got a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament — the ones that poured their heart and soul into the program but never got a chance to play in March Madness.
“I know what it feels like to lose it, and it’s hell. And so, when it went bad and [the losses] started piling up on each other, I take that personally. I felt I let Oakland down, I felt I let my kids down. It wasn’t about me. It’s never about me. It was about those kids.”
The past can’t be changed, though. Kampe chose to persevere through the tough losses, and on Tuesday night, it all paid off.
March 10, 2024
Kampe found himself and his program in a familiar position: stuck in a close game in the final minutes of a conference tournament game. When it seemed like history was going to repeat itself with the Golden Grizzlies and Milwaukee Panthers knotted at 70 with just under three minutes to go, Trey Townsend — a senior, fittingly — wrote a different story. The Michigan native scored 16 consecutive points for Oakland and finished with a career-high 38 as Oakland won the Horizon League Tournament. The Golden Grizzlies won, 83-76.
Townsend’s 38-point performance will be remembered for a long time, but Kampe’s determination to fight through the tough times should be applauded, too. Now, Oakland and its seniors — Trey Townsend, Blake Lampman, Jack Gohlke, Chris Conway and Rocket Watts — will get a chance to do what not many Golden Grizzlies before them had the chance to do: play in the NCAA Tournament.
And on Tuesday night, when Oakland punched its ticket to the Big Dance, Kampe made it not about himself, in his 40th season as head coach, but about the players.
“The NCAA Tournament is one of the top two or three — arguably the top two or three sporting events in the world — and [the players] get to be a part of it now. And what that means, I just can’t, I can’t quantify what that means.”
