FAIRBORN, Ohio – Rounding out the home portion of their regular season with a thrilling 66-65 victory over the rival Detroit Mercy Titans on Monday, the Oakland Golden Grizzlies will play their final two games of the regular season on the road, beginning with a Thursday, February 23 date with the Wright State Raiders at 6 p.m. at the Nutter Center.

Oakland's win over Detroit Mercy moved the Golden Grizzlies to 12-15 and 7-11 in Horizon League play, while Wright State will enter Thursday at 5-23 and 4-14 in the conference.

Freshman Brooke Quarles-Daniels tallied a double-double with 17 points and 11 rebounds in the first meeting between these two this season, a 73-68 Golden Grizzly triumph at the O'rena on January 15, with senior Breanne Beatty finishing with 15 and junior Alexis Johnson chipping in 11.

Graduate student guard Izzy Bolender led the Raiders with 15 points and six boards in the first matchup, including a 6-6 performance from the free throw line.

GOLDEN GRIZZLIES RUNDOWN
Hitting the game-winner with 4.5 seconds left in the Detroit Mercy win, Quarles-Daniels paces Oakland at 11.7 points, good for 14^th in the Horizon League and tops among conference freshmen.

Beatty and Johnson are also averaging double figures, registering 10.3 and 10.9, respectively, and junior Linda van Schaik is giving the Golden Grizzlies 8.7 points off the bench.

Returning to the starting lineup in the February 11 clash with the Robert Morris Colonials and remaining there since, sophomore Kennedie Montue has tallied at least 14 points in three of the last six contests.

Oakland's 64.5 points-per-game are seventh-best in the Horizon League and the 70.9 points opponents are scoring against them ranks eighth.

SCOUTING WRIGHT STATE
In her second season at the helm and the eighth head coach in program history, the Raiders are led by Kari Hoffman.

Returning home Thursday after a 1-3 road trip, Wright State is just above the Golden Grizzlies at No. 6 in the conference at 64.7 points-per-night, but the 77.9 the Raiders are allowing is the worst mark in the Horizon League.

Phoenix, Arizona senior Bryce Nixon is Wright State's lone player scoring in double-digits at 11.8 points, but sophomore Kacee Baumhower and fellow senior Emily Chapman, both native Buckeyes, are both close at 9.2 and 9.8 points, respectively.

These three, along with Bolender, are the Raiders' top 3-point threats, all knocking down at least 35 triples this season.

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
Dating over nine years ago to the Golden Grizzlies' first season in the Horizon League on January 8, 2014, Oakland and Wright State have played 22 times with the Raiders holding a 17-5 edge.

After Wright State won the first 16 meetings through February 27, 2020, the Golden Grizzlies have won five of the last six, including four in a row.

BARBASOL HORIZON LEAGUE TOURNAMENT PREVIEW
The top-five seeds in the 2023 Barbasol Horizon League Women's Basketball Tournament receive a bye to the March 2 quarterfinals, where they will play a home game.

Teams 6^th-11^th in the regular season standings will play a first-round game on Tuesday, February 28, with 6 hosting 11, 7 hosting 10 and 8 hosting 9.

The Milwaukee Panthers, with whom Oakland is tied for seventh in the conference, will round out their regular season with a pair of home contests, battling the Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons on Thursday and the Cleveland State Vikings on Saturday, February 25.

A PDF of the 2023 Barbasol Horizon League Women's Basketball Tournament bracket can be viewed here.

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 Quarles-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 126, 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.