Oakland holds off Central Arkansas: Keith Benson sets new career-high

Two days after facing the No. 1 ranked team in the country, Kansas, on the road, Oakland University returned  home to face Central Arkansas (1-5) of the Southland conference.

Simply put, the Bears of Central Arkansas didn't pose the same problems OU experienced against the Jayhawks at Allen Fieldhouse. The Golden Grizzlies (3-3) jumped out to an early lead and were able to hold on late for an 83-75 victory over UCA.

Junior Keith Benson had a career night for Oakland, scoring 24 points, pulling down a career-high 18 rebounds and blocking seven shots. Senior Johnathon Jones also reached a couple of career milestones. Jones scored 13 points and provided 11 assists. He became the Summit League's all-time assists leader and has now played more minutes than any player in Oakland history.

"I gotta thank my teammates because they're the ones that have been knocking down shots," said Jones of reaching the Summit League assists milestone. "It's just been about getting guys in the right places and getting them the ball so they can knock down shots."

Despite the individual accomplishments and overall outcome, OU head coach Greg Kampe said he was not pleased with his team's performance.

'"The bigger picture is for this to become a good basketball team," Kampe said. "We're playing a team that is probably not anywhere near the level of talent that we have. ... We came out in the second half and had a couple of veteran players make some huge mistakes and I'm not going to allow it."

After being down by double digits for most of the game, UCA made a rally and cut the score to 69-65 with 4:49 left in the game on an alley-oop dunk by Tadre Sheppard and back-to-back baskets from Mike Pouncy.

With the Bears still applying pressure, Jones hit a jumper from 16 feet and Benson grabbed an offensive rebound and then provided a crowd-rising put-back dunk to give OU a 77-70 lead with 1:18 left.

Chris Poellnitz, who scored a team-high 24 points for UCA, hit a 3 to make the score 77-73 with 1:10 left but Benson and Jones combined to knock down clutch free throws and put the game out of reach.

"Keith Benson should be the happiest guy in the world that we can't guard anybody because he gets a chance to block shots all the time," Kampe said. "People go buy us like we don't even exists so he gets a lot of chances to block shots. That's not very good. We're a long way away from being a good basketball team. We've got a lot of good players but some of them aren't here right now. Both (Drew) Maynard and (Blake) Cushingberry are going through that sophomore ordeal right now and we need them to push through it."

At halftime, Oakland led 50-34 and shot 54 percent from the field and knocked down 6 of 12 from behind the arc. OU was not as efficient on offense in the second half and also had 13 turnovers during the final 20 minutes.

The Golden Grizzlies travel to Memphis, a team that recently beat UCA 81-49, Monday night. For a preview of the game against the Tigers, check out this great article by Dan Wolken of The Commercial Appeal.

Other stories about the Golden Grizzlies can be found here. For further comments or to contact Ross, you can e-mail him at rsmaghie@oakland.edu or follow him on Twitter @maghielse.