Looking across the Breslin Center court last year against Michigan State in a 26-point loss, Greg Kampe was helpless.
Not only were his Oakland basketball players woefully undermanned against a future Final Four team, he was staring at one of his favorite all-time players, Drew Valentine, on the MSU bench giving them all of the Golden Grizzlies’ secrets.
“I called a play and as soon as I called it, (Tom) Izzo was telling somebody, ‘They’re going right there,’” Kampe recalled Monday. “I looked down at him and I laughed.”
Last year’s frustration has become this year’s excitement as Valentine, the former OU payer who spent the last two years as an MSU graduate assistant on Kampe’s recommendation, is now one of Kampe’s staff assistants.