Oakland Preview

 Next up is a very interesting game for BG...the Oakland Golden Grizzlies.

Oakland is coached by BG grad Greg Kampe (played football and basketball).  He is in his 38th season there--only the coaches of Duke and Syracuse have been at their school longer.  He has built this program, starting at DII, moving to D1 and then into the Horizon Conference.  And the NCAA tournament, where they have played 3 times, with a play-in win to their credit.  They were last in the 2011 tourney.

This is the 10th meeting between the two teams, with Oakland leading the series 5-4.  BG won the last meeting at the Stroh in the MAC-final year.  Before that, OU had won four straight, in games that were generally not close.

They were not great last year, at 12-18 and lost their 2nd and 3rd leading scorers from that team. They were picked 4th in the Horizon this year.

They are off to a really good start.  They are 7-2.  They started at a kenpom of 193 but they are up to 121.  They won at Oklahoma State in the 6th biggest upset to date this year in D1 MBB.  They then beat UT by 21.  Their losses are to WVU (48) and Alabama (9), and other wins are Vermont (98), Rice (166) Delaware (141), UIC (273) and IUPUI (349).

So, this appears to be a pretty good team.

They are an average team on offense.  They score .99 points per possession, which is actually below average.  They aren't great shooters (#225), mostly because they are one of the 10 worst 3FG shooting teams in the country.  They are, however, VERY good from 2FG, making 55%.  They are average protecting the ball and on the offensive boards, and don't get to the line very much but are very good at the line, making 77%.

They make their bones on defense.  They allow .93 points per possession, #69 in the country.  They are very hard to score against.  They allow an EFG of 46%, which is well below average.  They are #17 in defending the 3FG, not so good against the 2FG.  The force turnovers (94th) and keep opponents off the line (30th).  You can get offensive boards against them.

They have used only one starting lineup this year.  

They are led by an outright stud, Jamal Cain.  He's a 6'7" graduate transfer from Marquette who is scoring 21.2 PPG on 53% shooting, 85% at the line and 10.7 RPG.  He also has 20 steals in 9 games.  He's the #11 scorer in the nation.

He is complemented by Jalen Moore, who led the nation in assists last year.  He is scoring 13.2 PPG on 31% overall FG shooting and 20% 3FG shooting.  He makes 82% of his FTs and is4th in the nation with 6.9 APG.  They also have Trey Townsend, a FR from Oxford, MI, who scored 14 PPG on 41% shooting and 6.4 RPG.

This is a good team and beating them would be a very nice victory for the Falcons, even at home.  Coming off the strong game at Duquesne and heading into finals week, you'd love to get this W but it will be difficult. Kenpom gives BG a 49% chance of winning and BPI is 58% chance for BG to win.