ROCHESTER, Mich. – After playing 10 of their last 11 contests on the road to wrap up 2022, the Oakland Golden Grizzlies will break in 2023 with a four-game homestand beginning Thursday, January 5 when the Robert Morris Colonials make the trip to the O'rena at 7 p.m.

Looking to snap a three-game skid, the Golden Grizzlies will enter play at 6-7 (1-3 Horizon League), while Robert Morris is 7-6 and also 1-3 in the conference.

Junior forward Alexis Johnson leads Oakland in scoring at 10.5 points-per-game and doubles as the team's top rebounder, tallying 5.2 per game.

Burying five 3-pointers as part of a career-high 21 in the December 29 clash with the Green Bay Phoenix, senior Breanne Beatty is averaging 9.5 points and 4.8 rebounds per night, with junior Linda van Schaik checking in at an even nine points.

Freshman point guard Brooke Daniels is right behind van Schaik at 8.8 points and has racked up a team-leading 31 assists.

SCOUTING THE COLONIALS
Picked to finish ninth in the Preseason Horizon League Coaches Poll, Robert Morris is piloted by seventh-year head coach Charlie Buscaglia.

The Colonials won their league-opener over the Wright State Raiders in Dayton on December 2, but have since dropped three-straight conference games.

Buscaglia has a young nucleus of players, as four of his starters are sophomores and the other is a junior.

Native Canadian Phoenix Gedeon, one of these sophomores, is Robert Morris' go-to scorer, averaging 13.2 points, with classmates Danielle Vuletich and Simone Morris giving the Colonials 7.8 and 8.3, respectively.

Gedeon also paces Robert Morris in rebounding, collecting eight per game.

As a team, the Colonials are scoring 60.1 points on average, 3.3 behind the Golden Grizzlies' 63.4.

TELEVISION AND LIVE STATS LINKS
Thursday's action will air live on ESPN+ (subscription required) and can be accessed here.

Additionally, the Live Stats are available at this link.

ALL-TIME SERIES AND LAST MEETING
With Robert Morris joining the Horizon League in 2020-21, Oakland has only squared off with the Colonials four times, with the Golden Grizzlies holding a 3-1 edge.

Robert Morris' lone victory in the series came in the most recent meeting, a 73-65 triumph in Moon Township on January 28, 2022. A season-best performance, then-freshman Kennedie Montue led Oakland with 10 points, while senior Esther Castedo recorded a game-high 17 for the Colonials.

SEASON-LONG STORYLINES

NEW FACES FOR GOLDEN GRIZZLIES
Faced with the graduations of Kahlaijah Dean, Kayla Luchenbach and Brianna Breedy, who combined to average 28.7 points and 9.9 rebounds last season, the Golden Grizzlies brought in a trio of diversely talented transfers in Raquel Ferrer-Bernad, Alexis Johnson and Linda van Schaik.

A Southfield A&T Warriors graduate, Johnson is a junior forward who played three seasons in Conference USA (C-USA) for the Marshall Thundering Herd, while Ferrer-Bernad is a graduate student point guard who came from a different C-USA program, the Florida International Panthers.

van Schaik, another junior, joined Oakland by way of the Sun Belt Conference's Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks and projects to provide the team with another 3-point shooting threat.

On top of the program's work in the transfer portal, the Golden Grizzlies' 2022 recruiting class features a couple of high-upside players in guard Brooke Daniels, a Miss Michigan Basketball candidate a year ago from L'Anse Creuse North, and Lianna Baxter, a 6-foot-1 forward who starred at Oconto and is one of the top-100 scorers in Wisconsin high school history.

BREANNE BEATTY HEADLINES GROUP OF RETURNING PLAYERS
Appearing in all 83 of the program's games over the last three seasons, and starting all but two of them, senior guard/forward Breanne Beatty was named to the Preseason All-Horizon League Second Team on October 18.

The pride of Worthington, Ohio, Beatty is Oakland's leading returning scorer at 9.7 points-per-game in 2021-22.

In addition to Beatty, guards Kennedie Montue and Aaliyah McQueen and forward Miriam Ibezim, all of whom of sophomores, are back with the program and are in line to contribute significantly right from the season's opening tip.

JEFF TUNGATE ENTERS 10^TH SEASON
Named the eighth head coach in program history on July 16, 2013, the 2022-23 campaign is the 10^th with Jeff Tungate at the helm.

Third on the school's all-time wins list with 106, Tungate and four-year veteran assistant Crystal Davis made some changes to the coaching staff ahead of this season, bringing in Golden Grizzly Hall of Famer and former Mercyhurst Lakers head coach Deanna Richard and Tim Webb, who has extensive coaching experience at both the high school and collegiate levels in Michigan, as assistant coaches.