The Oakland women’s basketball season has ended after a near 30-point blowout at the hands of the Green Bay Phoenix in the Horizon League tournament semifinals.
Green Bay, the top seed in the tournament, dispatched the Golden Grizzlies last Thursday, March 6, at the Kress Center. The loss came just two days after OU advanced in the tournament after upsetting IU Indy in Indianapolis.
Dani Grim led the Golden Grizzlies in scoring with 18 points, followed by Lianna Baxter with 11 and Macy Smith with 10. Just glancing at the box score, you can see where Green Bay did their damage: they outrebounded OU 42-22, pulling down 19 offensive rebounds.
Another factor in the loss was junior stud Maddy Skorupski struggling mightily in the contest. Skorupski, a Horizon League All-league second-teamer, was held to nine points on 4-17 shooting. It’s been a common theme this year: if Skorupski plays well, the Golden Grizzlies usually have a good shot at winning. But if she isn’t hot, the team looks lost offensively.
Green Bay is one of the premier teams in the conference, sitting at 27-5 after their win vs Oakland, so the results aren’t totally surprising. OU finished second to last in the conference at 6-14, sitting just one spot ahead of Milwaukee in last place.
Now that the season is all wrapped up, it’s worth looking back to see where things went wrong. In the first four games of the conference schedule, the team got out to a blazing 4-0 start. They defeated eventual-eighth-place finisher Wright State at home by 14, went on the road and beat fourth-place Robert Morris by a bucket, closed out an overtime victory against fifth-place Northern Kentucky, then capped it off with a massive three-point-win over third-place Cleveland State.
With a start like that, it’s frustrating to think about how this team finished. After that 4-0 start, the Golden Grizzlies went 2-14 in their next 16 contests. That includes a 0-7 stretch in their final seven games of the season. The only other wins were against Milwaukee, the worst team in the conference, in overtime and over Detroit Mercy.
Looking at the team statistics from the 2024-25 season, it’s no wonder that Oakland had the season they did. They finished dead last in points per game at 59.4, second to last in points allowed per game at 71.1, and at the very bottom of the league for combined team rebounds and combined opponent rebounds. Despite having two scorers in the top ten of the league in Skorupski and Smith, the team still had very little success.
There will be a lot of roster overhaul after a disastrous season. Three seniors started against Green Bay: Grim, Smith and Madison Royal-Davis. Skorupski and Baxter should return to the fold for the next year, barring any transfers, and rotation players Sereniti Roberts-Adams, Kylie Buckley and Jasmine Dupree-Herbert should be back and better after another summer of work.
But it’s unclear who will step up to provide depth behind Skorupski and Baxter. Baxter has shown great flashes this season, including her 11 points, seven rebounds and six assists against the Phoenix. She shot a great three-point percentage at 41.5% but only shot 17/41 on the season. Can she keep her efficiency next year with more looks?
The coaching staff must dip into the transfer portal to bring in more talent to boost this team’s potential. There just doesn’t seem to be enough in the cupboard as is to contend. After head coach Jeff Tungate retired in early December, assistant coach Deanna Richard stepped in to finish the season. Richard’s performed admirably, and I would never judge a coach who had to change their role in the middle of the season like she did. However, I’d bet that Oakland looks to hire a coach from outside the program to lead the team moving forward.
