Oakland’s opening-night trip to Michigan was the kind of early-season test that tells you plenty about a team, and the Golden Grizzlies came out of it with more than just a loss. Now they head west for another challenge, this time at Stanford on Friday night, as part of a two-game California swing.
The Golden Grizzlies fell 84-68 at No. 16 Michigan on Monday, but they were far from overwhelmed. Chris Fields Jr. delivered a game-high 18 points and 10 rebounds, Nassim Mashhour added 16 points, and Oakland spent real stretches making the defending national champions work.
Oakland even led by as many as five, controlled much of the first 10 minutes and stayed in the fight well into the second half in Ann Arbor. For coach Greg Kampe, the most encouraging part came on the boards and at the foul line.
"We outrebounded the defending national champions (44-42) in their house and had 21 offensive rebounds; that's something to like," he said. "We shot more free throws than they shot (30-20).
That's something that we want to be a staple of our defense and we just did that. At Michigan."
The task gets no easier against Stanford, which opened its season Monday with a 74-65 home win over Eastern Washington. The Cardinal had to grind for that one, too, getting outrebounded 32-26 and beaten 15-13 at the line.
Julius Price led Stanford with 17 points in his collegiate debut, while Aziz Olajuwon chipped in 12 points and six steals. Stanford shot 54.9% from the field and was especially efficient inside the arc, making 23 of 31 attempts from two-point range.
Third-year Stanford coach Kyle Smith said his team should settle in now that the first win is in the books.
"We're really nervous, we're tight," he said of Monday's start. "I was worried we couldn't make a basket.
We turned it over and a lot of it I thought was just really jittery. Then our defense kind of picked it up and we calmed down a little bit."
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Stanford's Early Momentum Faces A Better Test Against Rice
Stanford has opened the season with a pair of wins over Eastern Washington and Oakland, and the early signs have been encouraging for a group still trying to settle into its identity. Julius Price and Nick Townsend have already given the Cardinal useful production, while coach Kyle Smith came away from the Oakland game pleased with the way his team competed and the clarity it showed in its roles.
Rice should provide a more revealing check on that progress. The Owls are 1-1 after beating Dallas Christian College and dropping a tight game to East Texas A&M, and Jacob Dar has been their most dependable presence on both the scoring and rebounding fronts. For Stanford, this is the kind of matchup that can show whether the first two results were just a solid start or the beginning of something more stable. [Read more 🡒]
Stanfords 2-0 Start Comes With One Clear Challenge
Stanfords early-season momentum kept building with an 81-63 win over Oakland University, a result that pushed the Cardinal to 2-0 and offered another look at how quickly this roster is taking shape. The transfer additions have already started to matter, with Nick Townsend and Christian Bliss giving Stanford a lift in scoring and on the glass as the team continues to sort out its identity under Kyle Smith.
Even with the comfortable margin, Smiths attention after the game stayed on the habits that will matter once the schedule stiffens. He praised the effort and the way the group is developing, but the next step is cleaner execution, especially when it comes to limiting turnovers and avoiding unnecessary fouls. [Read more 🡒]
Stanford Heads To Blacksburg With Its Season Suddenly On The Line
Stanford comes out of its final bye week with the kind of November stretch that can reshape the season in a hurry, starting with a road trip to Virginia Tech. The Cardinal have shown enough on offense to keep things interesting, with quarterback Davis Warren piling up pass attempts while keeping the interception total low and running back Micah Ford contributing as both a runner and receiver.
The challenge now is turning that into wins away from home, something Stanford has not done in a long time. A victory in Blacksburg would give the Cardinal a real foothold in the race for bowl eligibility, and with two of the final three games still ahead, the margin for error is suddenly very small. [Read more 🡒]