“That Dayton team, when they shoot the ball like that, they can beat anybody in the country…Anybody…And that’s NOT hyperbole!”
Kampe knows what he’s talking about.
In his 40th season at Oakland, he’s the longest-tenured coach in the nation at a single Division I school. He’s coached 1,213 games and, in that span, has taken his Golden Grizzles on the road to play dozens of the games against premier programs, including, Purdue, Kansas, Syracuse, Arizona, Pitt, Clemson, Michigan and Michigan State.
Over the years, Kampe’s teams have gone into Ann Arbor and beaten Michigan, upset Clemson in the NIT and beat Tennessee two years in a row.
This season the Golden Grizzlies topped Xavier in Cincinnati, took Ohio State to the wire in Columbus before losing by six and led both Illinois and Michigan State in the second half before eventually falling.
But this game was never close because the Flyers were on fire — “en fuego” as Koby Brea might say — making a program-record 18 three-point shots. That was in 34 attempts, which means UD hit 52.9 percent from beyond the arc.
The Flyers now have shot 50 percent or better in four of their last five games and are third in all of Division I basketball (just behind Wyoming and Baylor) in three-point accuracy with a 41.8 percent average.
Brea, who made 5 of 8 trey attempts Wednesday, leads the nation in three-point accuracy when it comes to players who take an average of at least 2.5 three point attempts a game. He’s made 36 of 68, which also translates to 52.9 percent.
“I believe he’s one of the best shooters in the country, in all of college basketball,” said Flyers point guard Javon Bennett. “When he shoots the ball, we think it’s going in.”
Interestingly, Brea came into the season after going 1 for 11 from beyond the arc in the Flyers’ two exhibition games, including an 0-for-7 misfire against Cedarville in the final preseason prep.
Wednesday night’s record 18 threes topped the old mark of 17 set in an 106-79 victory over VCU at UD Arena in 2018.
Against Oakland, everyone got in the act. Seven UD players hit threes.
Bennett also was 5 for 8 and led UD with 19 points. Kobe Elvis made three treys; Nate Santos two; and Enoch Cheeks, Petras Padegimas and Atticus Schuler all made one.
After the game, Kampe and UD coach Anthony Grant stood on the court and spoke for several minutes before parting with a warm embrace that showed mutual respect on both sides.
Grant said he quizzed Kampe about the Golden Grizzlies’ zone — which has some modifications to it that impressed him — and they spoke about their mutual connection: Dan Hipsher.
Hipsher, who was Don Donoher’s assistant, recruited Grant from Miami Senior High School in Florida to play for the Flyers in the mid-1980s. When he was a head coach at Stetson, he hired Grant as an assistant and later served on Grant’s staff at Alabama.
In the mid-1970s, Hipsher and Kampe, a product of Defiance High School in northwest Ohio, played together at Bowling Green. Near the end of his career, Hipsher served as Kampe’s associate head coach for three seasons before retiring four years ago.
As the two head coaches carried on their animated conversation, I thought of another way they are connected.
They are two of the most respected coaches in all of Division I basketball, not just for what their teams have done on the court, but for what each of them has done away from it.
Grant and his wife Chris have stepped to the forefront in aiding young people with mental health challenges after losing their 20-year-old daughter, Jayda, 19 months ago. They took part in several activities on the subject in connection with the Flyers’ October exhibition game with Ohio State and have launched the website www.Jayslight.org not only to tell their late daughter’s story, but to provide information on mental health and suicide prevention.
Over the years, Kampe has visited U.S. troops overseas, raised funds for cancer, promoted educational opportunities for inner city youth and has aided an Oakland County shelter (in Michigan) for women in need.
He’s been known to walk the back streets of Detroit, helping homeless people any way he can. There are stories of him emptying his wallet to help street people he met and then slipping off to an ATM, getting more money, and giving that away, too.
As Kampe stood there with Grant, one thing especially caught your eye:
Theres’ a whole lot less of him than there used to be.
“I’ve lost 51 pounds since March,” he said proudly. “I had to do something because, with Type 2 diabetes, I was trending poorly.” He said he did it with Ozempic and hasn’t had any side effects.
“I feel great,” he said.
‘That’s a really good team’
If that loss has been amazing, so was Wednesday night’s, Kampe said.
“Look what was going on tonight,” he said. “We guarded them. This wasn’t some bull crap, up and down deal. We guarded them. But they made deep shot after deep shot after deep shot. Look at how many times the shot clock was below five (seconds) and they still managed to get a shot off and make it.
“There were only 60 possessions in this game — a normal college basketball game is played in the 70s — and they still scored 91 points!
“I’ve coached over 1,200 games in my life, and I can’t tell you when I’ve seen that. It might happen when you’re playing a non-Division I school, but not at this level. I think we’re pretty good and we couldn’t stop them.
“You’ve got to pat them on the back and say, ‘That’s a really good team.’
“Now are they going to keep shooting 18 of 34? I don’t know. And are they built inside enough to go against the best teams in the country and beat a Purdue or somebody like that if they don’t shoot like this?
“Probably not.
“But if they shoot like this, they can beat anybody… Anybody!”
Kampe said they had focused their scouting report on Brea, Koby Elvis and Nate Santos, UD’s three most prolific shooters.
“And we wanted to limit the big kid (DaRon Holmes II) scoring inside and I think we did a great job on him. From the top of the key in, we were tremendous on defense.”
That’s so, but Holmes also was not at 100 percent.
He spent Sunday night in the hospital getting fluids and antibiotics for a stomach virus. He still managed 10 points and eight rebounds, but he also sat on the bench for long stints in the game.
“The one kid who was not a focus in our scouting was the point guard,” Kampe said of Bennett, who’s listed as 5-foot-10. “He the one who got them going. I think he hit three of his first four three-point attempts. It was his night tonight.”
Along with 19 points, Bennett had nine assists, four rebounds and a steal, all with no turnovers.
In fact, UD — which is 9-2 and has won six in a row — had only two turnovers the entire game.
Afterward, Brea praised Bennet’s job leading the team after Malachi Smith was lost seven minutes into the season with a leg injury:
“He’s been super impressive. He was given a pretty big role. Coming in, I don’t think he expected that, but he’s done great with it. He’s really put the team on his back.”
‘This just wasn’t our night’
Kampe said he had been looking forward to this game:
“I’m glad we finally got to play here. We’ve been trying to play here the last few years.” He did bring the Golden Grizzlies into UD Arena once and they beat Alabama A & M in an Opening Round game of the NCAA Tournament in 2005, but he wanted his team to experience a game when the Flyer Faithful pack the house.
Besides Hipsher, he had a connection to UD basketball through Brian Gregory, the former Flyers coach, who was a standout guard for him for three seasons at Oakland.
“This atmosphere is college basketball at its best,” he said. “We played at Illinois, Xavier, Michigan State and Ohio State this season, too. Those kinds of games, those experiences, they’re good for your team.”
With a laugh, he added, “But they’re not good for your record.”
The Golden Grizzlies are 6-7 and after Christmas will head into Horizon League play, which includes a Feb. 10th game at Wright State, before hosting the Raiders on Feb. 25.
“Can a team in our league shoot like this on a given night? Sure and we can, too,” Kampe said. “But tonight this was really something. They made one after another after another.
“I was over there going, ‘We’ve got to keep playing, but this just isn’t our night.”
The night belonged to the Flyers and like Kampe said:
“If they shoot like this, they can beat anybody…Anybody!”
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