Oakland basketball players receive recognition

With the basketball season about to begin, Oakland is already taking home awards.

After back-to-back Summit League Championships, Reggie Hamilton (first team), Travis Bader and Laval Lucas-Perry (third team) were named to the College Sports Madness Preseason All-Summit League teams and Corey Petros was named Freshman of the Year.

Hamilton averaged 17.6 points per game last year and was named to the All-Summit League first team, while Bader was named to the Summit League All-Newcomer team. Lucas-Perry sat out last year after transferring from Michigan and Petros is a first year player.

Although prestigious honors, head coach Greg Kampe doesn’t put too much emphasis into the awards.

“I don’t give a damn about preseason awards or, for that matter, postseason awards,” he said. “All I care about is our team and winning and I would expect my players would feel the same way. “

Hamilton agreed with his coach.

“It caught me by surprise, it’s a blessing to get that honor, since it’s my first time getting it and I’m happy,” he said, “but my main concern for the year is where Oakland stands as a team and everything else is icing on the cake.”

Kampe acknowledged each player has talent, but doesn’t know what could happen throughout the season.

“I have no idea what Laval means to our team he hasn’t played a second for us, so I don’t know why he would be preseason anything,” he said. “Bader had a great freshman year, but what does that mean? Let’s hope he has a great sophomore year. As far as Reggie, I think he’s the best player in the league, he should get every award there is, if I cared about awards, but I don’t.”

Oakland will have a new look with the loss of star Keith Benson to the NBA,  but Kampe believes his team will still be dangerous.

“We’re just going to be a different team than we were for the last couple year, that doesn’t mean we won’t be as good,” Kampe said. “We’re not going to dominate on the inside the way we dominated, but we’re going to be really hard to guard and we’re going to be really fast and have a chance to be not a good defensive team, but a great one. “

With all the changes, the team still has their eyes set on the same goal each year.

“Same as they are every year, to go to the NCAA Tournament and win the Summit League Championship,” Kampe said. “That’s the lone expectation and mission of this program every year. There’s one mission, to do that.”