"Greg Kampe Show" 12-4-23

#OaklandMBB coach Greg Kampe and "The Voice of the Golden Grizzlies" Neal Ruhl talk Oakland hoops live from RJs Pub in Rochester Hills!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
She's time for the Greg Campi Show, presented by Our Jay's Pub. Let's
go live to Our J's Pub inRochester Hills. Here's Coach Campy and the
voice of the Golden Grizzlies, Neilrule Oh, the Greg and Campy Show.
We're live at r J's Pub inRochester Hills. He is a coach,
Greg Campy. My name is NeilRuhl. Happy to have you all

(00:22):
with us here tonight. Camp Howyou doing, my friend, Actually,
I'm doing really well, doing reallywell. I know that Saturday was a
disappointment for people. It was especiallya disappointment for our players and us,
But I think if you really stepback and look at it, you know,
that was one of the greatest performancesI've ever seen by a basketball team

(00:44):
in our building, especially the samelevel team as US. Obviously, Oklahoma
State was pretty good a year ago. Here we might not have been a
good team as we are this year. But I just think, you know,
it was a tough night after thebecause Saturday could have ended one of
the greatest weeks in Oakland history.I mean, to do what we did

(01:06):
last week and then not finish itwas I wasn't happy about it. But
as I took the time to reallyreflect on it and look at it and
everything, we were asking our kidsto do a lot, you know,
the emotion of Monday night and howthat played out a five hour bus drive.
Then you're playing your arch rival,a team that we talk about every

(01:26):
day, you know, every practiceotherre's thirty days left to Detroit, you
know, and then to be emotionalafter that game, find a way to
win. We didn't play very wellin the first half. I credit Detroit
more for that than us. Wereally were unbelievable defensively in the second half.
And then if come back in threedays and play a team in league

(01:47):
play, you don't like playing leagueplay. This early. We had played
eight games, and we had playedvery well in all eight games. You
knew there was a game coming that, you know, we might not have
the hoping our step and things likethat, and it happened to be Saturday,
and a team took advantage of it. And it's one game. It's
over, and I'd be honest withyou, I haven't even looked at the

(02:08):
film of it. To me,it was a one off and we're on
our way to Toledo, So I'mdoing a lot better, and I thought
I would be after when I walkedout of the arena on Saturday. Well,
as we talked about, good tohave everybody out here again at our
J's Publa Rochester Hills. Remember youcan get involved in the show as well.
Send us a tweet. All yougot to do is put the hashtag
ask Campy on the end of itand we will read those in camp.

(02:31):
We have a ton of ask Campyquestions this week. So yeah, we
got Jack Okie coming in here too. He is he Jael. I told
him I'd buy him dinner and sureyou were probably here at five, right
he was. As a matter offact, he was this morning. Yeah,

(02:53):
there's three meals on that. That'shaving Jack on the show is way
more important to those questions. Butwe'll answer every one of them. We'll
answer, honest And I've seen acouple of them so uh, kind of
interesting some of them. So we'llwe'll get to them, you know,
and we'll go for it. Butgoing back to uh, you know,
Saturday and that, I'm really reallyexcited about our team. We've had an

(03:14):
unbelievable start to a season with oneof the toughest schedules in the country and
it only gets harder. I mean, we play we played Toledo, who
you know, has picked second inthe MAC. They've they're playing a schedules
very similar to ours. They playeda very difficult schedule. They've had some
big wins and they've had their comingoff a couple of losses, uh to

(03:34):
some really good teams New Mexico andteams like that. So that should be
a heck of the game. Willtell us a lot about ourselves, how
we bounce back from what happens Saturdayand then uh, and then we've got
Eastern Michigan, which is anytime you'replaying in state MAC team, you know,
obviously you recruit against them. Uh. You know, there's always talking
the recruiting world at high schools inthat about you know, well Eastern offered

(03:57):
disc guy and why aren't you guysdoing it? So you always want to
win those games. So it's abig week for us to see how we
bounce back from what I think isa very uncharacteristic game camp. We played
obviously a lot of big time schedulesand a lot of you know, very
very good basketball teams throughout the years, certainly to start a season as well.
But you know, as you talkabout this week coming up, and

(04:17):
obviously the week came off of lastweek having three games in a week,
it was an NBA style schedule.But there's been zero break here. I
mean, I mean every single timewe gotta lay some back up, we
gotta fire the engines back up.And it is Camp. I'll tell you
what. There may be like Powerfive names that catch your attention more,

(04:38):
but dollar for dollar, this schedulethis year Camp is right up there with
anyone that I've been a part ofthe last twelve years. Yeah. And
one of the things that I think, you know, as true people that
follow the program, if you reallystep back and look at it, you
know, I've had some great teams, and all those great teams played similar
schedules to this. None of thoseteam teams have done what this team's done.

(05:01):
And I'm not talking about the winsand losses, but the back to
back to back to back efforts.And like so you take the Benson team,
you know, we go and webeat the fifth or sixth rank team
in the country, Tennessee, andthen three days later we got to play
at Ohio State and we get killed, you know, because of coming off

(05:24):
the emotion of beating the number seventeam in the country or six or whatever
they were. And then we goto Ohio State and we lose by twenty
two or twenty three. Then weplay another power five and I think it
was a very close game we almostwon, maybe it was Purdue. And
then we go and we play anotherpower five team and we get beat really
bad. This team this year hasshould have could have could have won,

(05:46):
should have won at Ohio State,could have won at Illinois, wins at
Xavier. Drake to you know,Drake is a very very good team,
and people as the season goes on, we'll see that they will be unless
they get injuries and things like that. They will win the Missouri vas probably,
although Bradley it looks like is youknow, they're getting national votes right
now too. But they'll be atthe top of that league and they'll win

(06:08):
game in a game or two inthe n State tournament. You'll go,
oh, yeah, he's right.That team's really good. So we keep
playing teams like that. We playedLoyal La Merimont, who's hasn't lost since
they since we beat him, andthey beat Ol Paso the other night by
thirty and our passle was seven andone or something like that. So we're
just watching all these good teams we'veplayed, and we're going back to back

(06:30):
to back to back and playing them. And as you said, you know,
I fly to the Cayman's play,come home, God, Xavier win,
go to Detroit. You know,so that bad game was coming,
and it's just it's not an excuse, it's not anything. Seventeen of the
top twenty five teams lost last week. I mean, think about that.

(06:50):
That's a week that's never happened incollege basketball because of COVID, because of
the age, because of the extrayear the game has changed, the difference
between the top and the bottom hasshrunk. And because of the age in
COVID, the fifty years and allthat, you're seeing these teams. No,
Purdue loses, North Kentucky beats Iforget Memphis or somebody by twenty and

(07:16):
then they go home and they loseto North Carolina Wilmington. I mean,
it's just happening over and over again. And if you watched our Xavier game,
you could have put Xavier's uniforms onour players and Oakland uniforms on Xavier's
players, and you would have notknown the difference. You know, you
wouldn't have you would not have known. Oh yeah, you would have.
I mean, that's how close itwas. And that's just college basketball to

(07:41):
day. So you're going to losesome games. Now, not very often.
I've sat on that bench and lookedup at a clock in the arena
and saw Oakland down thirty points athome in a league game. I mean
maybe one other time and the longtime I've been doing this. But it
doesn't matter. It was a loss. I don't think we played bad.
I don't think it was You hada team play the greatest game they've ever

(08:05):
played, which we reward that.You know, I always tell people on
the golf course when I walk offthe eighteenth green, if I lose to
them and I have to pay hima few dollars, and I'll pay for
quality. I'll pay for quality.Man, they took quality to beat me,
I'll pay you for that, right. And that's how I felt with
Fort Wayne Saturday. That was justI'm not sure we made a mistake at

(08:26):
the end of the half. Weopened the second half with two really bad
turnovers and then it was gone.If we don't make that mistake on the
three point shot and we score onthe first two possessions of the second half.
I think it's a completely different game. But we that's something we have
to learn, That's what you know. They have to learn that. I
can tell them and tell them andtell them, but until you experience it,

(08:48):
you know you learn that. SoI've never seen a team with seven
under seven minutes to go in thegame. The Smitty showed me the statue
because I don't really want to lookat the stat sheets during games, and
he goes, they're shooting ninety twotwo percent. I don't eleven to twelve.
I don't care. I don't carewho you are. That's I've never
seen that before. You know,you don't do that in a shoot around.

(09:09):
Now for real, I mean,for real, you don't do that
in a shoot around. Greg can'tbe show brought to you by Henry Ford
Sports Medicine, the official team physiciansfor Oakland University and you. For more
info, visit henry Ford dot com. Backslash Athlete camp. I wanted to
bring this up because obviously it's relevant, and I think it really illustrates the

(09:30):
start to the season and it showsyou the nature of college basketball. Golden
Grizzlies right now are sixty second inthe RPI rankings for college basketball. That
is high. That is really high. Yeah, it's good, Neil.
The more important one is the net, and the first NET rankings came out
today and were at one oh six. If the sad part is is if

(09:52):
we would have won Saturday, we'dprobably be in the forties or thirties.
Fort Wayne, I think is seventysomething and theref they were fifty eight.
They're fifty eight and had seventy somethingin the net with their win at Oakland.
That's a huge win, right right, because we were low, we
had a really good, good rankand we were forty three when we played
the game on Saturday, and sowe dropped what seventies what'd you say in

(10:16):
terms of the RPI. Yeah,we were forty three when we played the
game Saturday, sixty two. Sowe dropped the sixty two with a home
loss, which that's not bad.It shows it, you know. Fort
Wayne was seven and one or eightand one. So yeah, those things
fluctuate a lot at this time ofthe year, are they important? No?
I mean two years ago on Christmaswe were the number one ranked RPI
team in the country, and wewere It's funny, we were forty two

(10:39):
in the net and we played ourfirst league game and one we played EPU
I think it was, and wewon, and we dropped from forty two
to like seventy because they were thelike last right right. So but that
year when we were nine eight tono in the league, I think we
were eight no, lost the game, then won a game to go nine
and one. We were you know, in the sixty in the net,

(11:01):
which was you know, really reallygood, and then we lost a couple
of games and we fell out ofit. So it's not that was just
two years ago. It's not unprecedented, but it really is kind of meaningless
until the end, until you It'slike I told our team after the Xavier
win, you know that it's ahell of a win, but it's a
win you put in your back pocketuntil such and Sunday and if you get

(11:22):
in, that's when that win helpsyou that if if we get in,
we will not be a sixteen orsixteen or fifteen seed because of that win
over Xavier, because of a youknow, close loss to Illinois, a
close loss to to Ohio State andPlus we've still got Michigan State and Dayton,
and I won't be surprised if wewin those games, you know,

(11:43):
I'll be a little disappointed if wedon't. Obviously, you know, we're
all and twenty against Michigan State,so it's getting one eventually is going to
happen, but it could be thisyear. So we still have those two
games to play. I think wecan win any game on our schedule,
and we'll see what happens with allthat RPI and that stuff, but it's
really meaningless right now. Camping again, I don't want it to get lost

(12:05):
in the Washington. We spent alot of time on this Purdue Fort Wayne
game, but certainly Monday night wewere not here at our Jase Pub in
Rochester Hills because we were in Cincinnatibeating Xavier on national television. So that's
what we were up to on Mondaynight. And then as you talked about
you bounce back and camp, Imean, that's the number. You guys
are eighteen and three against Detroit Mercyand Horizon Lely played eighteen and three.

(12:30):
That's what it is. Yeah,I'm pretty proud of that, but in
all honesty, I think it's timeto let that go because I think after
every one of those eighteen wins,we might have lost the next game,
you know. I mean, it'sjust it's somebody brought that up to me
last year and I kind of went, no way, and then I went
back and look, and it's weput so much into that game that the

(12:50):
next game, and then again thisweek the same thing happened. I think
the whole thing to Xavier and allthat had a lot more to do with
it than just Detroit. But Ireally believe that, you know, it's
great, but I think maybe someof that emphasis needs to be taken off
that because we're eighteen and three init, right, we don't really recruit
against them much anymore. The media's, you know, everybody, even our

(13:13):
fans. I mean, when wefirst got in the league, we would
take three four thousand people to agame down there, and now we don't.
We might have had three hundred peoplethere Wednesday night. Now I do
realize it was a Wednesday and nota weekend, but I even think our
fans are you know, not asI mean, she had. We want
to win that game and everything,but it's not like it was when we
first got in the league, Ithink we'd moved beyond it. So I'm

(13:35):
probably going to be emphasize it alittle bit. I think it's a smart
move on our part because we can'tcontinue to lose the game after it,
especially the last game of the seasonthis year, because the next game after
it will be a conference tournament.So we surely you know that senior Day
and that in itself will mean alot. Anyways, camp I did have

(13:56):
one kind of ask Campy for you. I just look at at the RPI,
and again I'm going off RPI rankingshere because I have them in front
of me, but produe four Wayneof fifty eight obviously, US at sixty
two, Youngstown at one to twentyfive, Wright State at one fifty two,
Cleveland State at one sixty one.Is the scheduling I call the mandate
scheduling philosophy of the Horizon League?Is is it working a little more?

(14:18):
What's what's kind of your early seasonreturns on that? Well? I think
that has to be analyzed at theend of the year. We do have
three teams right now in the bottomtwenty, which is you know, that's
what the mandate is supposed to keepus from having because what happens in that
and RPI is when you beat youknow, a team that's three thirty or

(14:41):
three thirty five, that actually hurtsyou unless you win it by twenty five
or thirty points. And who winsleague games? Oh iepu I does fort
Wayne does? I guess because theydid it to us. But normally you
don't win league games by that kindof a margin. Right, So it's
you don't want anybody in your lifeleague down at that level because it hurts
you in this and again, allthis does is seed you. This is

(15:07):
this is the reason it's important.It's for seeding having a chance to win
an the UNSA tournament. And that'swhy everybody talks about it. So it
might be working because it looks like, I mean, we've got what seven
teams or six teams and one lessthan two hundred, which is good,
but we have those three teams thatare still down at the bottom, and

(15:28):
you know Detroit, Detroit's you know, they're in obviously a rebuilding mode and
they've played a very difficult schedule.Their schedule maybe is harder than ours,
are equally hard dours, and youknow they haven't gotten any wins so that
hurts, you know the thing.But the other two teams, Milwaukee and

(15:50):
ip UI. I mean, it'sa shock that Milwaukee's down there. When
I saw that, I like,what because I really haven't paid that much
attention because they were picked first andsecond in our league by a lot of
people. And I heard that bJ Freeman, their best players hurt and
maybe that's got something to do withit, But they won't be down there
when the season's over. We justgot to hope that Detroit figures it out

(16:11):
and i EPOI figures it out,all right, camp When we come back,
we'll be joined by Jack Goldkie hereat RJ's Pub in Rochester Hills.
And there's some Ask Jack questions thatare out there as well on Twitter.
We'll get to that. Even aformer Horizon League rival has sent in a
question, so we'll we'll discuss thatGrand Vasilia has sent in an ask can't

(16:33):
be question. That may be afirst for the show. But we'll be
right back. Jack Golkie will joinus. You're listening to the Greg Campy
Show. We're live at r j'sPub in Rochester Hills. They say consistency
is the key to success. Theyweren't wrong, So hell about grabbing a
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