Junior guard Travis Bader had a historic night Thursday, scoring a career-high 47 points to lead the Oakland University men’s basketball team to an 89-71 victory over IUPUI.

The Golden Grizzlies (9-13, 4-4 Summit) improved to 6-1 at home and handed head coach Greg Kampe his 499th career win. With the loss, IUPUI (6-17, 1-8 Summit) dropped its seventh straight game and fell to the bottom of the conference standings.

Bader’s offensive output is the highest this season by a Division I player, and his 11 3-pointers set a new school record — one he previously set. Despite his impressive performance, the sharpshooter was quick to praise the other players wearing Oakland jerseys.

“My teammates did a great job,” Bader said. “All night long they kept finding me in transition and through the offense.”

Kampe joked that Bader’s previous best of 10-12 from beyond the arc (last season at South Dakota State) was a better percentage than Thursday’s 11 of 18, but he was very pleased with Bader’s hot hand and the way his team set Bader up throughout the game.

“A lot of guys got him open because they recognized it was his night and they got him going,” Kampe said. “The players were the ones who helped him make the shots with great screens and passes.”

Last Saturday it looked like Bader might have a similar outing, after he hit five straight threes in the first half against South Dakota. However, Bader hit a cold spell and missed his next 10 attempts from beyond the arc, finishing with just 19 points as Oakland lost its first game at the O’rena. That performance fired up the junior guard, helping him accomplish the historic feat.

“After the last game I said something really stupid, ‘I let them (South Dakota) get in my head’,” Bader said. “I’m the only one who can get in my head. There’s never been any other team or any other player that has done that. I reflected on that a bit and came out here shooting, doing what I do in practice, just putting up shots.”

Kampe agreed, citing that as a turning point from Saturday’s loss to Thursday’s victory, not just with Bader, but with his entire team.

“I was very angry with him when he said that they got in his head,” Kampe said. “That told me the whole mindset of our team. Mentally we were in a fog, so we had to reshape that and make some changes because we were headed in the wrong way.”

One of those changes was shaking up the lineup, as Kampe replaced junior Duke Mondy at one of the guard slots with sophomore Dante Williams. Mondy, a transfer from Providence two seasons ago, had been a focal point of the offense this season, at times running the point. However, his performance had not been up to Kampe’s liking, with the coach specifically pointing to poor point guard play after recent losses.

“I wanted him (Mondy) to think he was never going to play again,” Kampe said. “It was my intention to sit him the whole game, but I thought he handled practice very well this week, so we put him out there. I thought he played his best all-around game since being at Oakland. His stats were very similar to what he would usually have in 40 minutes, only in 25 minutes. We are just trying to refocus him, and sometimes it takes sitting on the bench to understand that you need to do things the way we need them done.”

Mondy seemed to learn his lesson, providing a spark off the bench with 11 points, five rebounds and five steals. Despite his solid numbers, Kampe still plans to start Williams (who had only three points) over Mondy in the next game.

“He (Dante) played exactly how I thought we would play, Kampe said. “I thought Dante played seventeen okay minutes, I need seventeen better minutes on Saturday.”

With all of the focus on Bader, sophomore center Corey Petros quietly collected his sixth double-double of the season, scoring 12 and grabbing 11 boards.

“They kept trying to double-team Bader, so they found me a lot,” Petros said. “When I screened him (Bader), I was wide open every time, and the guards set me up.”

Petros helped the Grizzlies to a significant 37-18 advantage in rebounds. Junior guard Ryan Bass had a career high nine assists. Oakland closed the first half on an 11-3 run to then spark an early 11-4 scamper in the second stanza.

For IUPUI, senior guard Sean Esposito led the Jaguars with 25, and junior forward Donovan Gibbs chipped in 15.

Oakland looks to collect career win no. 500 for Kampe, as they host Western Illinois at 5pm as part of the homecoming festivities. The game will be broadcast on Fox Sports Detroit.