Earlier than Thursday evening, if you weren’t acquainted with Oakland College, you weren’t alone. Not removed from the campus, even locals at a Detroit bar, who had been watching the group shock No. 3 seed Kentucky within the first spherical of the N.C.A.A. event, had been asking if “that Oakland was in California” or the Michigan suburb of Rochester. (It’s the latter.)
On Friday, after Oakland’s 80-76 upset victory as a No. 14 seed, college students and graduates reveled within the college’s second within the March Insanity solar. They embrace John Hendley, class of 2005, who watched the sport from Florida together with his spouse, Melissa, additionally a graduate.
“If people didn’t know who the Oakland University Golden Grizzlies were before last night, they surely know now,” Mr. Hendley stated.
For all however maybe shut followers of the college, a quick introduction could also be so as: It was created in 1957 through a donation to establish a satellite location for Michigan State University. At first, the campus was often known as Michigan State College-Oakland, however in 1970, Oakland grew to become an independent university.
In 1997, Oakland College moved its athletic program from N.C.A.A. Division II to Division I. A 12 months later, it modified its mascot from the Pioneers to Golden Grizzlies, in line with the college’s web site.
The campus of Oakland College feels extra like a sprawling company park, which is sensible. There are numerous them close by, just like the world headquarters for Stellantis (previously often known as Chrysler) and different automotive suppliers.
The college is surrounded by strip malls with quick meals chains and a golf course. Of the about 16,000 at the moment enrolled college students, solely 2,500 stay on campus. And that’s by design. There are few if any public transit choices within the space, reflecting the mind-set of a Motor Metropolis constructed for vehicles first and pedestrians second.
Even the Golden Grizzlies’ coach, Greg Kampe, commutes from his residence in Detroit correct.
The college is a smaller possibility in contrast with the 2 main public establishments within the state — the College of Michigan and Michigan State College, that are each about an hour from Oakland. However for Oakland supporters on Friday, the campus felt a little bit larger.
The college’s president, Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, who boasted on Friday that she had stuffed in her N.C.A.A. bracket accurately on the Oakland-Kentucky matchup, stated she was “over the moon.”
“It’s really exciting for us,” she stated, including that the nationwide consideration was nice “for the athletics and for our university and for universities like ours.”
James Wissbrun, a 21-year-old laptop science main at Oakland who grew up close by and has been going to Golden Grizzlies video games since he was a baby, traveled to the sport in Pittsburgh on a constitution bus that the college rented for college kids. He returned at 4 a.m. on Friday and obtained solely a few hours’ sleep earlier than working at his 7 a.m. job with the grounds crew for the town of Rochester Hills.
“It was worth it,” he stated. “I’ve been coming here forever, and now to actually be a student here and see how far we’re getting, it’s just incredible.”
Mr. Wissbrun stated he deliberate to take the bus the college was offering to see the group tackle No. 11 North Carolina State on Saturday, once more in Pittsburgh.
Giovanni Moceri, a 22-year-old mechanical engineering main, shall be on the bus, too. He has hosted watch events for Golden Grizzlies video games, attempting to create a way of group on campus. Typically it may be a problem.
“A lot of students here don’t even know we have sports here,” Mr. Moceri stated.
That was not the case the earlier evening at RJ’s Pub in Rochester Hills, one of many native bars, the place the ambiance was “rocking” through the sport, stated Russell Luxton Jr., who operates the bar and is an Oakland graduate.
Lights and sirens went off each time that Jack Gohlke, one of the team’s stars, hit a 3-pointer, Mr. Luxton stated, including that for every 3-pointer Gohlke made, “the crowd got louder.”
Who is aware of what’s going to occur in Saturday’s sport? However till then, Golden Grizzlies fandom is reaching a fever pitch.
“We’re thriving,” Mr. Kampe, the coach, stated after the win, including that “everything is in place for this program to take off, and maybe this is the ignition for it.”
