Everything Greg Kampe said after Oakland pulled a major NCAA Tournament upset vs. Kentucky

The greatest hour in the history of Oakland men’s basketball — and its longtime 68-year-old head coach, Greg Kampe — has arrived.

The 14-seed Golden Grizzlies upset 3-seed Kentucky 80-76 in the NCAA Tournament first round on Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena.

Oakland’s stunning win wasn’t a fluke either: The Golden Grizzlies led for nearly 28 minutes and were spearheaded by 32 points from guard Jack Gohlke, which included 10 3-pointers.

This is only the second NCAA Division I tournament win for the Oakland men’s basketball program. The other was a play-in game victory in 2005.

Kampe is now in his 40th season as Oakland’s head coach. After Thursday’s game, he called the result the biggest win for both himself and for the Oakland program.

Here’s everything Kampe said after a historc March Madness victory.

Opening statement: For us, we played, and I got asked this a couple days ago. You don’t blow anybody out, you don’t — you know, you won a championship, but your numbers, you’re in the middle of the pack and everything. We just win close games. We’ve done it all year. We lost a very close one to Ohio State and a very close one to Illinois. We learned from those games. When we beat Xavier in a close game, we knew we were a special team, and we just have different ways to beat you, but our zone is — man, it’s good, and we defend.

That’s so much different for me. I’ve always been a coach that won games with offense,and this year it’s all been defense, and great players making plays down the stretch. And we just win close games. If you would have been in our huddles the last seven, eight minutes of the game, we said if we get it — if we’re ahead with the six minutes to go in the game, we will win, and they believed that and they did, because they’ve done it all year. We win close games. We make plays.

Trey with a fade away jump shot. DQ Cole with a shot in the corner when it looked like all hell was breaking loose. We had a seven-point lead and all of a sudden it’s two and we’re in a panic. Shot clock is running down and Rocket gave it up. Rocket Watts gave it up and DQ buried it. We just do those things, and that’s how you win, and we won.

Q. Greg, did you speak this into existence yesterday with the talk about Hoosiers and Jimmy Chitwood?

That’s my boy right there. Jimmy. Jimmy Gohlke. No, I just — I got a lot of crap about what I said, and I was shocked by that. People just couldn’t believe that I said I wanted Kentucky. And they took it all wrong. I mean it was — we had a chance to play on primetime, and I knew my team’s good, and I knew that they deserved the chance to not play in somewhere out where nobody’s paying attention and, oh, that team won and showed the highlights.

I wanted them to be primetime, and I knew they would — there was never a doubt in my mind that this wasn’t going to be a game. There was doubt that we would win, but there was never a doubt that this would be a game because I’ve been with this team since June and I know who they are.I mean, did anybody think that was lucky? I mean, that’s the worst we’ve shot from the free throw line all year, and we missed point blank shots early, but Gohlke put us on our back. And then we did — our defense carried.

Defense travels, it carried us. Right? You know, I brought that up, the only reason I brought that up, honestly, is because just before I came into the press conference that day, somebody tweeted it at me. And so I knew that. I’m not that big of a nerd. All right. I just knew it because I had just read it and it seemed the right thing to say.

But honestly, the Kentucky fans that thought I was — that was the biggest compliment I could give you, that you’re the blue blood, the blue blood, that your fan base is the best, that you have the best coach and all that kind of stuff. That was just a compliment. It didn’t mean anything but that.

Q. Greg, for these guys, this is a lifelong accomplishment. But you’ve been coaching twice as long as they’ve been alive.

Of course, we gotta go there. Yeah. OK.

Q. It’s a good thing. And you’ve been — I guess we’re going to keep going down that road. You were talking about the other day when you walk into the Pitt you get chills about the close losses and then the bad draw against Texas a dozen years or so. So many times you’ve almost had this moment. When you are now sitting on the other side of this moment, what is rushing through you?

Longevity. You stay around long enough you’re going to get lucky, right? I got lucky to have this group of kids. My staff recruited them. They’re the greatest group of kids. I mean, they’re just unbelievable.You heard these two guys. I mean, unbelievable kids, and that’s why we win.But I did say this in the press conference, I forget who asked me, but would this be the greatest win and I said it would be for Oakland but not for me because of the Michigan stuff. I don’t know if you heard that or not.

But I lied.

This is the greatest win that I’ve ever been a part of. As soon as that horn went off, I changed my mind immediately. This, on primetime, against the great coach, the great program and all that. And just the way we played. I’m going to say it again. We led the whole game, right? And every time they got the lead we came right back. If we were pretenders, we would have folded, and that’s what Jack meant by that Cinderella thing. We don’t look at ourselves that way. We’re not pretenders. We believe that we belong here. Trey Townsend physically in the second half went to work. Right?

And I mean, we shot five free throws in the first half and they had 14. Yet when the game was over we made more free throws than they do because that’s how we play, physical. And we belong. I agree with Jack. We don’t want that Cinderella slipper. We want to be known as when we’re playing on Saturday, whoever we’re playing, we want the respect that this is a good basketball team.

Q. Coach, over the years you’ve had a lot of good teams, a lot of good players. What does this win mean for this program that a lot of people have to remind it’s in Michigan and not California?

Yeah. I wanted to say something, but I won’t. I’ll be classy. I think a few years ago, Michigan State was number one in the country, and we had a chance. The ball rolled around the rim, it didn’t go in and we lost in overtime. That, I’ve said many times, I have had nightmares about that game, and if that ball had gone in, it would have changed everything for Oakland basketball because we would have beaten the number one team in the country on national TV. Would have changed the amount of money that came in, maybe I’d have a practice facility, you know, all that kind of stuff.

This changed everything tonight. There’s nobody in the country that doesn’t know what Oakland basketball is. And I’m really proud of that. I’m really proud of our school. I’ve spent a lifetime there. When I got there we were 9,000 students with 1,500 on campus. We’re 20,000 now. With 5,000 on campus. We’re thriving. We have a great president. I have a great athletic director. Everything is in place for this program to take off, and maybe this is the ignition for it. So yeah, it means the world.For me, a lifer there, you know, it’s just really special

Q. Coach, you said yesterday that this win would change the lives of the guys on your team, and obviously we’ve seen on social media just how much exposure you’ve gotten and people, like all kinds of people have just said how impressive Jack played and just how impressive your team played. What does that mean to you that you guys are getting that recognition from these big time people of how talented you say you know your team has been all along?

First of all, I think it’s because of the way we play. I think we handled the win, too. D.Q. got a little carried away with about 14 seconds to go or something, and he got it. I punched him right in the stomach, you know. Not physically. Verbally. But they saw the great kids and they saw really, really good basketball. But what I meant by that it would change their lives, in the lore of Oakland basketball, I mean they’re going to be back for a 10-year anniversary, a 20-year anniversary, a 30-year anniversary.

They’re now the team. Jack Gohlke, as you just said, somebody said you’re a celebrity, and that’s what we’ve talked about. The whole thing down the stretch has been, once we knew we had won a ring, the whole banter in the locker room has been what’s it going to say on that ring. Right? What’s it going to say on that ring, just Horizon League champ? NCAA? Sweet 16? Final Four? I’ve put that thought in their mind,and they’ve really battled for it, and they understand that their life got changed tonight, but it could get changed a hell of a lot more if we keep this thing going.

Unprompted:

I’m having a hard time and when Cal comes in here, you know, that was a hard thing for me. And he was unbelievably gracious after the game. Unbelievably gracious. Because it has to be a hard thing for him, too. And I feel bad because I didn’t know what to say to him. I just stared at him.

But what he said to me, he was unbelievably gracious, and I want you to remember that’s a very good man. Thank you.

Q. What did he say to you?

I’m not sure I even remember, because I was — honestly, I didn’t know what to say.

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