And They Play On

The Oakland University Golden Grizzlies came to play Sunday night against Western Illinois, controlling the game from start to finish en route to an 80-66 victory. Junior Erik Kangas knocked down 6 threes on his way to a game high 26, with "D-Nel" chipping in 17.

I was completely impressed with the fire OU showed...it seemed (at least on the radio) that they were focused from the start, which can only help tonight as they square off against 25-game winner IUPUI. Remember, the game can be seen on FSN Plus tonight at 7.

Game Notes

• I said this on the forum, but WXOU -- specifically Brad and Corey -- really did a nice job last night. It's rare to hear s student-run radio station sound so professional. I listened on the Webstream, and was really impressed with them. Corey does a fantastic job of keeping the listener up-to-date on the score, as well as describing the action. Brad also does a nice job chiming in when appropriate.
• Kangas came alive in the second half. I knew it would happen, I kept waiting for it, and then they started falling. I expect that to carryover today.
• We didn't shoot well at all (40%), and yet still blew WIU out. If we can up that percentage to 45%, we can give the Jags a run for it.
• We went to the line 55 times last night. That's all well and good, but we missed 20 of them, including 15 in the second half. That won't get it done. At least make 40 of those 55, you know? 63% from the stripe...not good. Nelson? 8-15 on throws. Ick.
  
• McCloskey is the epitome of a college player. He works hard when he's in, he does his job and he doesn't whine when he's not in there. Last night he had one point and 9 big boards.
• Shane Lawal is back in the rotation -- and Benson is out. What gives? Lawal got 5 boards and 3 blocks in 15 minutes. Our bench bigs really seemed to do the job, with Will Hudson and Strat also having nice games
• Strat is our Dennis Rodman (or Rasheed for you new schoolers). His antics can really piss a team off, and that doesn't show up on a stat sheet

Lastly, there was an interesting Terry Foster article in the Saturday Detroit News...and it has U of D MERCY up in arms. I am going to write my opinion of the Nurses' inferiority complex later. It's funny when a team that can't win 10 games in a season still trashed our coach/team. No recruits, no coach, no wins....but yet they're still better because John Long played there a century ago. Nice logic.

More on that later.