Oakland vs. Detroit Mercy: 3 quick takeaways from Grizzlies win

Three takeaways from Oakland’s win over Detroit Mercy. The Golden Grizzlies second half performance propelled them to a road victory over their rivals.

Entering this Horizon League game, Trey Townsend led Oakland in points (16.7 PPG), rebounds (8.3 RPG), and assists (4 APG).  For the Titans, Jayden Stone led Detroit Mercy in points (21.7 PPG) and steals (1.5 SPG) entering this game.

However, both players would not be the reason that either team won or lost tonight in Calihal Hall.

Detroit Mercy did not look like a team that had not won a game this season in the first half.

The Titans played with a ton of passion, hustled by diving for loose balls, crashing the glass, and being patient with the ball against Oakland’s zone defense. Detroit Mercy went into halftime down only one point but led for the majority of the first half.

UDM did all this with only five points from their leading scorer Stone and the Titans who clearly do not have the height advantage against the Golden Grizzlies bigs, held Oakland’s leading scorer Townsend to only three for nine from the field in the first half.

In the first half, Tyree Davis who got his first start of the season shot three of four and had six points played well. Marcus Tankersley led all scorers going into the half with 10 points and had two steals and provided solid play in the first half. Jamail Pink only had two first-half points but four assists and provided some quality minutes.

Oakland came out ready to play in the second half.

The Golden Grizzlies went on a 13-4 run to start the second half and they started to go inside with Isaiah Jones scoring four and Jack Gohlke going five during that stretch. UDM with 12:09 left in the game, only scored four points up to that point of the game. Oakland made six of their first eight second-half shots and stepped up their intensity on defense.

Tone Hunter made a three with just over 10 minutes remaining in the game to give the Golden Grizzlies a 44 to 32 lead. Oakland started to trap up top on defense causing UDM to take contested shots with the shot clock winding down. The Titans only scored five points in the second half with 5:15 left in the game.

One Big Man for Oakland continues to show how valuable he is for his team this season as he had another strong offensive performance.

Chris Conway‘s best offensive game this season was against Marshall in the Cayman Islands Classic when he made nine of fifteen of his field goal attempts for a season-high 18 points. He also had 15 points on the road to help Oakland upset Xavier two days prior to this game. Tonight, he continued to play well scoring 14 points to lead the Golden Grizzlies to another road victory but this time against their main rivals.

Conway was the second leading scorer in a low-scoring game and his free throw shooting was impressive as he made six of his seven free throw attempts. He only had two rebounds and two assists but he protected the paint, especially in the second half, and provided a calming presence when Oakland needed it most.