HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – The finishing touch on their 2022-23 regular season and the second of consecutive road games, the Oakland Golden Grizzlies will battle the Northern Kentucky Norse on Saturday, February 25 at 2 p.m. at Truist Arena.

Beginning this road swing with a Thursday loss to the Wright State Raiders, the Golden Grizzlies will take a 12-16 record into play Saturday, including a 7-12 mark in the Horizon League, good for eighth in the conference standings.

Defeating the Detroit Mercy Titans in their Thursday tilt, Northern Kentucky's record is the inverse of Oakland's at 16-12 and the Norse are in fifth place in the Horizon League at 10-9 in conference action.

Behind a 20-point, 18-rebound, seven-assist showing from freshman Brooke Quarles-Daniels, the Golden Grizzlies did top Northern Kentucky, 74-67, in the first meeting between these two this season, which came at the O'rena back on January 13.

GOLDEN GRIZZLIES RUNDOWN
Quarles-Daniels' 20 points in that January 13 clash were a career-high until Thursday when she tallied 21. For the year, the L'Anse Creuse North Crusader is Oakland's leading scorer at 12.1 points-per-game and she has reached double figures in 13 of the last 15 contests.

Senior Breanne Beatty and junior Alexis Johnson are both averaging double-digit points, as well, contributing 10.4 and 10.9, respectively.

Returning to the starting lineup for each of the last four games, sophomore Kennedie Montue had her second-best showing of the season Thursday with 19 points and has pitched in at least 14 in four of the last seven.

Rochester, New York center Miriam Ibezim, a fellow sophomore, is only scoring 3.5 points, but she has started 27 of the Golden Grizzlies' 28 games and pulled down a career-high 12 rebounds Thursday.

Oakland's 64.9 points-per-game are seventh-best in the Horizon League, just 0.4 behind Wright State for sixth. On the defensive end, the 71.3 points the Golden Grizzlies are allowing is No. 8 in the conference.

SCOUTING THE NORSE
Led by seventh-year head coach Camryn Whitaker, Northern Kentucky is hovering right around their fourth-place projection in the Preseason Horizon League Coaches Poll.

Graduate student guard Lindsey Duvall, a two-time Second Team All-Horizon League honoree and a 2022-23 Preseason First Team selection, paces the Norse and is third in the conference at 17.3 points-per-game, 0.2 back of Youngstown State Penguins fifth-year senior Lilly Ritz for second.

Duvall is also racking up a team-best 9.5 rebounds-per-contest, second in the Horizon League.

Danville, Kentucky senior Ivy Turner and Detroit sophomore Kailee Davis are also scoring in double figures for Northern Kentucky, checking in at 12.2 and 13.4, respectively.

The Norse feature the conference's third-best offense at 68.6 points and are No. 6 defensively, giving up 64.3.

TELEVISION AND LIVE STATS LINKS
Saturday's regular season finale will air live on ESPN3, which does NOT require a subscription, and can be accessed here.

Additionally, the Live Stats are available at this link.

ALL-TIME SERIES
Dating over seven years to Northern Kentucky's first season in the conference on January 14, 2016, Oakland and the Norse have tussled 15 times with Northern Kentucky holding a 10-5 edge in the series.

2023 BARBASOL HORIZON LEAGUE TOURNAMENT PREVIEW
The top-five teams in the regular season standings receive a first-round bye and will play a quarterfinal home game on Thursday, March 2 at 7 p.m.

Entering Saturday's final day of regular season action, the top-five teams are:

1 – Green Bay Phoenix: 24-4 (17-2)
2 – Cleveland State Vikings: 26-4 (16-3)
3 – IUPUI Jaguars: 17-12 (13-7)
4 – Youngstown State Penguins: 18-10 (12-7)
5 – Northern Kentucky Norse: 16-12 (10-9)

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

As of now, here is how those matchups look:

6 Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons vs. 11 Detroit Mercy Titans
7 Milwaukee Panthers vs. 10 Wright State Raiders
8 Oakland Golden Grizzlies vs. 9 Robert Morris Colonials

A PDF of the 2023 Barbasol Horizon League Tournament bracket can be viewed here and a list of all Saturday's games to complete the regular season is available at this link.

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.