Men’s and women’s basketball teams announce TV deal
The Oakland men’s basketball season is right around the corner, and the team held their media day on Tuesday for players and coaches to talk about the upcoming season and the new television deal the team announced today.
The team simultaneously announced that all men and women’s home games will be aired 20 Detroit (WMYD-TV20) while many other games will be aired on Xfinity channel 900. There are also several national broadcast games throughout the season including games against Michigan State and Arizona.
This upcoming season will be head coach Greg Kampe’s 31st season with Oakland, the third-longest active streak in the country behind Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski. He says that this season will certainly be an interesting one as even though he has a lot of experience at this level, his team does not.
“We only have five players that have played in a college basketball game, and only three of those have played significant minutes … I think we are very talented, but how we grow up and what kind of leadership we get is going to determine our season,” Kampe said.
Along with leadership being a key factor for the season, Kampe also emphasized that his team must be able to rebound and play defense if they want to compete in the Horizon League. He says that the league is very deep and features big, physical teams, and although the Golden Grizzlies will not change their style of play, rebounding and defending will determine if they can compete for a league championship.
Kampe did not speak much on the departure of Travis Bader, but he did say that Max Hooper, who transferred from St. John’s earlier this year, will have to make some open outside shots. Plays won’t be specifically run just for him like the team did for Bader the last two years, but Hooper’s ability to make those shots will help the rest of the team with shot selection.
Hooper also talked about how his role is not to replace Travis Bader, but to help the team win in whatever way they can.
“The most important thing for this team is winning … Every team is different every year so we can’t think of it as filling a void, I’m just going to think of it as helping this team by doing what I do best,” Hooper said.
The team will host an exhibition game this Saturday against Ferris State at 1 p.m in the O’rena. The regular season starts on Nov. 14 at Iowa State.
