Golden Grizzlies Brace For Pack
Greg Kampe held court for the media Friday. The Oakland head coach has been in the game for 40 years, but the bright lights that come with prepping for a second-round matchup in the NCAA Tournament – foreign territory for the Golden Grizzlies – are a different experience.
Kampe handled it well.
The veteran coach was ready with a handful of quips that delighted observers. He shared stories and discussed the joy that his team’s win over Kentucky created, including massive orders of Golden Grizzly t-shirts from the Louisville area.
What he has struggled with is time. The quick turnaround coupled with the abundance of well-wishes has cut into Kampe’s ability to study NC State’s tendencies.
That’s when his experience kicked in and he trimmed the fat by only using film that relates to what his team will do defensively.
“I've looked at every possession this season that they've played against zone,” Kampe said. “Not a lot of teams play zone, so that's good, otherwise I'd be up three nights. It's going to be a completely different game plan than we had against Kentucky.”
The Oakland zone is unique in that – like an attacking offense – it has many variations and digressions possible. Kampe gives his team some freedom but it is a schmatically sound defense that tends to allocate for different styles of opposition.
“The great thing about our zone is there's only so much you can do against a zone,” Kampe explained. “If you're going to play Oakland, we've got 77 set plays. How many of those are you going to prepare for in one day against when you play zone? They can only do a few things, and we've seen it all, so we think we know what they're going to do.
“It's going to be a completely different game plan than we had against Kentucky. At Kentucky we wanted them to catch the ball at 10 or 12 feet. We wanted them shooting from 10 or 12 feet. We didn't want them shooting threes. We did a great job of that until the last two or three minutes. (Saturday) night we can't let that big dude (D.J. Burns Jr.) get in there and catch the ball at 10 or 12 feet, otherwise I might have three guys with broken bodies before the game is over, so the game plan is going to be completely different.”
One thing that Kampe was not cagey about in any way was his desire for a sped up game against the Wolfpack.
If the game moves quicker, Kampe also feels that it will suit Oakland’s defensive style in the back end of the contest.
“It's going to be a complete opposite game plan and the reason is they're playing their seventh game in 11 days,” Kampe said. “Who does that? I mean the pros don't even do that, but because they're in a league with 400 teams they had to win five games to win their league championship, so they had to play five games in five days and turn around three days later and play, and two days after that play again.
“What have we got -- if we're smart we're going to play fast. We want to make them run. That big dude (Burns) is big! And they got a lot of big dudes. We want to make them run, and at some point they're human, aren't they? I mean at some point it's gotta kick in, seven games in 11 days. If we can keep the pressure up and we get them to the point that their legs are tired, it's hard to make jump shots when your legs are tired, and to beat a zone you gotta make jump shots.”
However Kampe decides to approach Saturday’s round of 32 matchup, his players are steadfast in their conviction that he will guide them further in their NCAA Tournament adventure.
“They're a pretty good team,” junior guard DQ Cole said. “They got some big solid guys inside. The guard plays pretty decent. But I know our coaching staff will put together a good game plan to stop or at least limit most of their good players and try to get them to miss some shots, and we're going to hope we keep hitting shots and moving up.”