Why 14-seed Oakland can upset 3-seed Kentucky basketball in March Madness

Holding court in the corner of the O'Rena blacktop, pep band blaring in the background, Oakland basketball coach Greg Kampe paused an extra beat before answering this particular question.

A straight shooter with lofty dreams, the 40th-year coach did his best to assess the chance his team has against perhaps the most well-known college basketball brand in the nation.

The No. 3 seed Kentucky will play No. 14 seed Oakland at 7:10 p.m. Thursday at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh on CBS.

But will the Golden Grizzlies be intimidated by facing Big Blue Nation?

"No, not this group," he said. "Remember, this is an old group. I’ve got a lot of older statesman, we’ve played everybody. Trey (Townsend) and Blake (Lampman) and Chris Conway, we’ve played everybody in the country during their four years, so I don’t see where that’s an issue."

EARLY PREDICTION: Oakland basketball vs. Kentucky in March Madness

It's an interesting matchup on the surface — not just one of the biggest brands, but the nation's No. 1 3-point shooting team in Kentucky against an Oakland team which plays a zone defense that both limits long-ball opportunities and prevents straight-line drives.

Of course, there's only one problem with OU's defense.

"Cal pretty much taught me how to run it," Kampe laughed.

That doesn't mean Oakland can't run it to near-perfection. In fact, Kampe said a handful of years ago, Calipari forwarded Kampe's number along to an inquiring mind about the best way to install the system because "you run it better than I do," he said.

But the task is going to be extremely tall for Oakland.

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Kentucky has five players who average double-figures scoring, led by future NBA lottery pick Antonio Reeves, and buoyed by sharpshooting freshmen duo Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham. The trio made an incredible 46.9% of their 3-pointers (215 of 458) as each shot better than 44% and averaged at least 4.5 tries per game.

Still, Oakland isn't going to go into this game and roll over. Kampe had a litany of reasons why his team can compete in this game.

"Yeah, we can win this game," he said. "We can score from the outside, score from the inside, we’re a great free throw shooting team and we’ve lived off of our defense. Our offense has been sporadic, but we’ve lived off our defense. So if we have a great defensive game, you know ..."

Then, it almost seemed as though some of the clips he'd seen of the Wildcats this year began playing in his mind mid-sentence. The ever-realistic Kampe then fully came to terms with the task at hand.

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"We have to get their C-game offensively," he said. "If they have their A-game offensively, it will be a long night for us."

If there's one person who is particularly built for it, it's Townsend. Both of Townsend's parents played for Oakland in college, he grew up a fan of the program and was in the stands for OU's last tournament season.

This season and week has been a dream come true for the sixth conference player of the year in Oakland history. This year was Oakland's ninth league title in 24 Division I seasons, but just the fourth time it was able to win the league tournament and earn the automatic bid into March Madness.

On Tuesday, Townsend scored 38 points with 11 rebounds and five assists to ensure that happened. He said there's no reason it can't be the beginning of a month to remember. All week long, he and his teammates texted about how relieved they were that their tournament spot was already locked up; but now that he knows the opponent, he's ready to dial back in for what he said could be another weekend to remember.

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"If you look at how we played the Power Five schools this year, we've competed with every one of them," Townsend said. "Kampe is a really talented coach, knows what it takes to win at the highest level. His offensive scheme and mindset, it's hard to prep for a team like us and I think that's where we can catch a lot of people off guard."

If there's one part that bothers Kampe, it's that he's playing his friend in Calipari. Kampe said "nobody was there" for him like Cal when his mother passed away a few years back and that he "hates" the fact when they shake hands at the end of the game, it will mean one of their seasons has come to an end.

He would feel the same way if he were playing Tom Izzo, he said. You never want to knock out your friends. Of course, Roy Williams and North Carolina knocked him out the first time (2005), followed by Jamie Dixon and Pittsburgh (2010) and Rick Barnes and Texas (2011).

"Seems like every time I'm in this ... it’s a really close friend and that’s hard," he said.

It was a full circle moment on Sunday in northern Oakland County, where Kampe couldn't help but laugh to himself about how the season started with a loss to a Division II team in an exhibition, but now continues into a place it's gone just a handful of times before.

He couldn't help but think of the three to four teams between then and now he felt truly should have been in this same spot, but for whatever reason came up an inch short here or there. This game is for all those teams, and while though he's liked his chances in other years, he silently agreed this shot feels as good as any has.

"We can win," Kampe said. "But it’s a monumental task."

Contact Tony Garcia: apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him at @realtonygarcia.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why Oakland can upset Kentucky in NCAA Tournament in Pittsburgh