Oakland’s Kahlil Felder led the Grizzlies past Detroit, going 9-for-16 and sinking all 10 shots at the line to finish with 29 points. Photo/Oakland Golden Grizzlies (Jose Suarez)
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he first two minutes of Sunday afternoon’s game for Oakland’s Khalil Felder could have foreshadowed a similar result to his team’s loss in their last meeting with Detroit.
The sophomore point guard already picked up his second foul with 18:33 left on the clock in the first half. He started just 1-of-5 from the floor.
Roughly 38 minutes of play later, the focus remained on Felder, just for neither of those reasons.
Last year’s Horizon League Freshman of the Year continued a spectacular follow-up campaign, scoring 29 points and dishing eight assists in the Golden Grizzlies’ 83-78 win over the Titans.
“I had a lot of emotion coming into this game because I played terrible at their place earlier in the year,” Felder said. “So I had to make sure we got the ‘W’ today.”
For a period, it appeared that Oakland might exact revenge on Detroit, who handed their rivals a lopsided 20-point loss when the two teams met earlier this season at Calihan Hall. With the two teams knotted at 23 each, Felder put a bow on a 16-0 Oakland run by stopping, crossing over and draining a 3-pointer late in the first half. But even as Oakland led by 13 at half, neither Detroit nor Felder had shown the best of what they had to give.
Even before the half closed, Detroit freshman Paris Bass began building momentum for a performance that largely propelled the visitors’ offense. Oakland (13-14, 8-4 Horizon League) elected to give Bass open looks from outside, beginning with a make beyond the arc that halted the Golden Grizzlies’ aforementioned run.
“Single plays can change games, and that play changed the game,” Oakland coach Greg Kampe said. “It was us being lazy on defense. We wanted to hand over the ball and make him go right, and we weren’t anywhere near him. Then he made another 3 the next possession, and boy did he get going. He was special.”
Bass was just part of the Titans’ onslaught that helped completely eradicate Oakland’s double-digit lead midway through the second half thanks to a team effort on both sides of the court. On offense, Bass got assistance from Detroit’s starting backcourt pair of Matthew Grantand and Jarod Williams, the former of which helped pour several 3-pointers on the Golden Grizzlies. Detroit also used full-court pressure and extended their defense far beyond the three-point line in the half-court, causing problems for Oakland with the ball out of the hands of Felder.
Detroit (12-16, 5-8) finally re-captured the lead, and continued to punch back and forth with their rivals even as Felder continued to make spectacular plays, having several of his shots take fortuitous bounces. That included a left-handed floater that took a bounce upwards and pinged in, and another that took deflected off the edge of the top of the backboard and eventually fell.
Felder made a great deal of his good luck on his own, but smiled when asked about the fortune of those makes.
“It felt like I was shooting into the ocean,” he said. “Everything I shot was going in.”
The tide turned for good with both teams tied at 71 and 2:55 remaining as Oakland forward Tommie McCune drove the open lane and was fouled by Youssoupha Kane. The junior forward made his first free throw, and after missing his second, rushed into the lane and re-acquired the ball with his right hand to lay it in, re-establishing Oakland’s lead permanently with the unconventional three-point play.
“It really just boiled down to us getting stops,” Detroit forward Juwan Howard Jr. said. “In the clutch, we allowed Tommie to shoot his free throw, miss it, and get it right back. Anytime you let someone do that, you know it’s hurting your defense.”
After two free throws from Bass, Felder went hard to the rack and created contact on his way to an old-fashioned 3-pointer that gave Oakland a 77-73 lead with 1:16 left. He and Howard Jr. were almost solely responsible for each team’s points in the final minute or so of regulation. The two former Doughboys traded contested baskets, and the Titans’ senior forward was able to push a right-handed shot in to cut the lead to two with 13.2 seconds remaining. But after Felder was sent to the line and made both, Howard Jr. hurt any chances of a comeback by making just one of his two when he earned a trip to the line with just over six seconds to go.
Despite that, both teams were largely efficient from the free-throw line. Detroit finished 15-of-19, while Oakland went 17-of-22, including a perfect 10-of-10 by Felder.
While Howard Jr. was able to get several difficult attempts to fall late, he finished with just nine points on 3-of-11 shooting. Guarded by Oakland senior forward Dante Williams, who didn’t have a good shooting performance, either — he was just 1-for-12 with two points — the Titans’ leading scorer (18.1 ppg) refused to give credit to the Golden Grizzlies’ best defender for his sub-standard outing.
“Everything really boiled down to me,” Howard Jr. said. “I won’t put credit to Dante, I just put it on myself, not making the shots I usually make.”
Kampe, who has touted Williams as a Horizon League Defensive Player of the Year leading candidate, seemed to feel differently about the performance of Detroit’s star, who has had two of his four lowest point totals this season come against Oakland.
“I don’t know, if that’s what Juwan feels, that must be what it was,” Kampe said. “We’ll get to play again maybe [in the Horizon League Tournament], so we’ll see what happens.”
For the Titans, Bass finished with team highs of 28 points and six rebounds. Junior guard Anton Wilson also had 11 points off the bench for Detroit.
The Golden Grizzlies got another major spark off the bench from freshman guard Nick Daniels, who added 14 points and was a major contributor in the early going. Senior Corey Petros was a perfect 5-for-5 from the field and had 11 points as well for Oakland.
The win came in front of a record O’rena crowd of 4,101, breaking the previous attendance record set when Detroit came to Rochester last season.
“We have played them twice here [since joining the Horizon], and we’ve set attendance records both games,” Kampe said.
“I thought today we played really well in a rivalry game like that…you can color me 50 shades of happy right now.”
*Report courtesy of Press Row Sports.
