Box Score Rochester, Mich. (Feb. 25, 2004) ???C Oakland???s men???s basketball team took a break from conference play tonight and placed four players in double figures as the Golden Grizzlies never trailed and rolled to an easy 88-77 victory over IPFW. Oakland shot 51.7 percent from the field and turned the ball over only nine times as they raced to an 18-point halftime lead. Mike Helms (Detroit, Mich.) led the Golden Grizzlies with 25 points as they improved their record to 12-16 on the season. Neither team was able to find a rhythm in the early going and after four minutes of play Oakland only held a 6-4 lead. A missed dunk by IPFW???s Keion Henderson started a streak of six straight missed shots by the Mastodons and Oakland had the opportunity to make the first move of the game. Helms connected on a trey after the Henderson miss and the Golden Grizzlies were off to the races. Oakland held IPFW to just five points over a 10-minute span, out scoring the Mastodons 29-5. The Golden Grizzlies hit nine of 16 shots in the run and when Rawle Marshall (Detroit, Mich.) hit a free throw with 6:09 left in the half OU had a 33-9 lead. IPFW halted the bleeding with a three-point shot from Henderson, but could not make up much ground for the rest of the half and Oakland led 44-26 going into the locker room as all eight players that saw action in the half for OU scored, led by Marshall???s nine points. Things did not get much better for the Mastodons early in the second half as Oakland ran its lead back up to 24 points when Helms canned a three-point shot four minutes in that put OU up 58-34. The Golden Grizzlies led by as many as 28 points with 13 minutes to play, until IPFW started to grind away at the Oakland lead over the final 10 minutes of the game. David Simon, who finished with a career-high 33 points, scored 20 of them over the final 10 minutes to lead IPFW???s charge. After another Helms three-pointer gave Oakland a 74-49 lead with 10 minutes to go, the Mastodons went on a 10-0 run to cut the lead down to 74-59 on a dunk by Simon with seven minutes left. IPFW kept coming and shaved the OU advantage down to 10 points at 83-73 on a free throw by Henderson with a minute to go. From there the Mastodons ran out of time and never got closer than 10 points as the Golden Grizzlies stiffened in the final minute to come away with the win, its third in the last four games. Helms finished with his 25 points on the strength of 5-of-8 shooting from three-point range and hitting all eight of his free throw attempts. Cortney Scott (Lansing, Mich.) finished with 17 points and six rebounds for OU, with Marshall and Kelly Williams (Detroit, Mich.) each adding 14 points. Jordan Sabourin (Sarnia, Ont.) led Oakland with seven rebounds. Simon had a monster night for IPFW, notching a double double of 33 points and 14 rebounds, connecting on 14 of his 17 shot attempts. Henderson finished with 19 points for the Mastodons, who fell to 3-23 with their eight straight loss. Oakland will finish out the regular season on Saturday when it hosts Mid-Con foe Western Illinois at 6 p.m. in the Athletics Center ???O???Rena.