Feb. 27, 2010
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ROCHESTER, Mich. - Junior Keith Benson scored a career-high 32 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for a double-double, while junior Larry Wright tallied 17 points, 8-for-8 from the charity stripe, to lead Oakland University (23-8, 17-1) to an 86-83 victory over a late charging IPFW (15-14, 9-9) in Summit League men's basketball action on Saturday at the Athletics Center O'Rena.
"We don't make it easy, do we?," said OU coach Greg Kampe. "I've never seen us miss free throws like that, I've never seen us make the mistakes we made, but we got a break. Then we made another mistake and let the guy get open and shoot it, but we got lucky. One of these days we're going to get caught if we're not a little more careful."
The Golden Grizzlies end the regular season on an eight-game winning streak and set a new league record with a .944 winning percentage. OU has also won 20 straight games at home versus league opponents and are 17-1 in its last 18 games heading into the tournament next weekend.
Senior Johnathon Jones finished with a double-double, scoring 16 points and dishing out 10 assists. Junior Will Hudson added seven points and six rebounds off the bench. Benson moved into second all-time in league history with his four blocks tonight, pushing his career total to 229.
"It's uncharacteristic to have guys missing free throws," said Kampe. "The bad part is we couldn't get Derick (Nelson) back in there to get the ovation he deserved on senior night, and we couldn't do that for JJ either, and that's the part I'm most upset about, that it ended that way. But, a win is a win, and 17 wins is the most wins in the history of the league."
With Oakland up three, 84-81, IPFW's Jeremy Mixon flashed to the basket and thought he was going to have an easy lay in, but Wright blocked his shot, secured the rebound and was fouled, making both free throws to push the lead back to five points, 85-81, with just 20 seconds left.
Deilvez Yearby then scored on a layup and the Mastodons quickly fouled Jones. The senior point guard uncharacteristically missed both free throws and Zach Plackemeier launched an NBA 3-pointer from the top of the key with one second left that was just off the mark as the Golden Grizzlies held off a late charging Mastodons team for a three-point win.
Trey McCorkle led the Mastodons with 25 points, while Yearby tallied 23 points and 10 rebounds for a double-double. Jeremy Mixon posted a career-high 18 points to round out double-figure scorers for IPFW.
The Golden Grizzlies took their final lead just two minutes into the game and improved to 20-0 this season when leading at halftime, 39-29 tonight. OU led by as many as 14 points with just under eight minutes to go in the game.
Oakland ends the season with a 13-game home winning streak, which currently stands 15th-best in the country. The Grizzlies will be the No. 1 seed at the conference tournament and will face either Western Illinois or UMKC on Saturday, March 6, at 7 p.m. ET. The game will be televised on FS Detroit.
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