So, Purdue begins as the No. 1 team in the land in college basketball, wins its first two games by 31 and 10 points, and gets demoted to No. 2. Who caused that, we’ll get to in a minute. But already this season has shown a flair for the unusual.
Florida subbed in the tallest player in history, 7’9 Olivier Rioux, needing only a 27-inch vertical jump to hit his head on the rim. Maryland lost its first home opener since 1976. Kent State, apparently opening the track season early, dropped its first game 103-97 but won its next 110-102. Jake Davis, 0-for-12 for the early season in 3-pointers for Cal Poly, buried his lucky 13th try to beat Seattle at the buzzer. BYU scored its first 38 points from the field in the paint on the way to mashing Holy Cross 98-53.
Tennessee rolled over Northern Kentucky, the 210th different school Rick Barnes has beaten for his 838 career victories. Eastern Washington began the season as a nuisance, pushing UCLA before losing by six points, then falling in overtime at Colorado after 18 lead changes and 15 ties. In an absolutely loaded freshman class, the biggest scoring was not from the marquee names everyone saw coming, but Stanford’s Ebuka Okorie, who put up 55 points in his first two games. Penn State agreed to play in the cozy gym of Division I’s newest member, New Haven, where the Nittany Lions won 87-43 before a crowd of 1,087.
The first four games of the season between Associated Press-ranked opponents were all won by the lower-rated teams — No. 13 Arizona over No. 3 Florida, No. 25 North Carolina over No. 19 Kansas, No. 15 Alabama over No. 5 St. John’s and No. 22 Michigan State over No. 14 Arkansas.
Purdue traded places with Houston at the top of the newest AP poll this week, even though the Boilermakers started 2-0 without one of their top players, Trey Kaufman-Renn.
Then there is the Oakland Death March.
Greg Kampe leads Division I in coaching seniority with his 42 seasons, and he’s well known for his willingness to take his Golden Grizzlies nearly anywhere and play nearly anybody. But this? On the first day of the season, Oakland went down the freeway to No. 7 Michigan and was hammered 121-78. The Wolverines blasted off with 69 points just in the first half, more than 113 teams scored in their entire games that night. Four days later, the Golden Grizzlies stopped by No. 1 Purdue. They were a stubborn bunch in West Lafayette, leading in the second half before losing 87-77.
Next? Wednesday night, they’ll be at Houston, who was No. 2 but is now No. 1, mostly because the Boilermakers were docked by the voters for having such trouble with Oakland. Yep, your fault, Golden Grizzlies, that you’re facing the second No. 1 team in six days.
No. 7, No. 1, and then another No. 1 in the first 240 hours of the season. “I think we play the Pistons after that,” Kampe joked earlier in a TV interview. All away games, of course. And a trip to Michigan State is still on the books for December. If such bravado reminds anyone of an Acapulco cliff diver, what would you expect from a 69-year-old guy who just ran a half-marathon last month? “Stupidity,” Kampe has said, “has always been a part of my life.”
So has been going into the ring with the heavyweights. And it isn’t always Oakland taking the 10-count knockout. The Golden Grizzlies over the years have shocked the likes of Houston, Clemson, Michigan, Washington, Texas A&M, Oregon and Tennessee twice each. And their biggest head of all on the wall — No. 3 seed Kentucky in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Oakland ended the John Calipari Era in Lexington.
So this triple scoop of top-7 opponents is entirely within character. Kampe has been around long enough – he’s not only at the top of the active coaching list in Division I tenure, but 11 years ahead of Michigan State’s Tom Izzo in second place – not to worry about his non-conference record. The motive is simple. Build up scar tissue for later.
“You always talk about when you get to March, is your team ready for the moment,” he said on a TV interview. “So we want to put these guys in that pressure situation. If we can run our offense against Houston, if we can stop Michigan’s fast break, if we can rebound with Purdue – they’ve got the best point guard in the country – if we can control him and guard him, we know that bodes well for the future. Plus, we learn what we can’t do.”
Also, a couple of other things. “We get national TV. And then they might pay us a little bit of money, too.”
So Kampe is willing to occasionally endure the tire tracks over his team – such as what happened at Michigan – with the understanding there will be some nights his upstarts give problems to bigger fish. Purdue, for example, where the Golden Grizzlies out-rebounded the Boilermakers and had them grumbling afterward. “We just beat Oakland by 10 points,” Purdue guard Fletcher Loyer said. “Credit to them, they played a great game, but if we’re supposed to be the No. 1 team in the country, we’ve got to be better than that.”
The Associated Press voters agreed. So now Purdue is No. 2 and Houston is No. 1, not that it makes any difference to Oakland.
The Golden Grizzlies are doing this with one returning starter, Tuburu Naivalurua, selected as the Horizon League preseason player of the year. “I have no idea how to pronounce his name, but I’m glad he’s back,” Kampe has said. There are new faces from the college basketball hinterland. Ziare Wells, who had 21 points and 12 rebounds against Purdue, is from Division II Lenoir-Rhyne. Isaac Garrett, who made eight of 10 shots for 20 points at Michigan, comes from Snow College of the JC ranks. A guard off the bench, Brett White II, is a product of NAIA Rochester Christian. He’s also 27 years old.
Kampe’s program has often been a haven for the unique. The folk hero of the Kentucky upset was Jack Gohlke, the 3-point sniper who torched the Wildcats for 32 points. Gohlke took 271 shots that year for Oakland – 265 of them from behind the arc. His scoring average was 13.1, but he had only three 2-point field goals all season.
So, yeah, the Oakland program of Greg Kampe marches to its own drummer. The parade now goes from old No. 1 Purdue to new No. 1 Houston. A very rare doubleheader, in a fledgling college basketball season already picking up speed.
