Oakland Tech, Oakland Renew Rivalry With Seesaw Affair

With the OAL lead up for grabs, the Bulldogs and Wildcats combined for 14 lead changes.

The Oakland Wildcats and Oakland Tech Bulldogs met four times in 2023. Three of those games were one-score affairs, and the fourth was for a NorCal title.

An impossible act to follow up, right?

Think again. Technically, it wasn’t a one-possession game, but the sold-out crowd at Oakland High got plenty of thrills in a game that had 14 lead changes and seven ties before ArDarius Grayson led the visiting Bulldogs to a 67-61 victory.

“It meant a little extra,” said Grayson, who scored 13 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter, including the go-ahead basket with 1:17 to go off a backdoor pass from Xan Meyer-Plettner.

Grayson also had nine assists and seven rebounds as Oakland Tech (17-5, 5-0 OAL) took sole possession of first place at the halfway point on the OAL schedule. The teams will meet again at Oakland Tech to conclude the regular season on Feb. 14.

“It’s good for Oakland and OAL basketball, having these atmospheres,” Bulldogs head coach Karega Hart said. “It’s electric.”

In front of a roaring crowd split 50-50 between Bulldog and Wildcat fans, Hart’s team overcame an ugly second quarter to turn the final 16 minutes into a back-and-forth affair before finally taking the lead for good.

Oakland (15-6, 4-1) led 33-26 at halftime after outscoring the Bulldogs 20-9 in the second, but Tech took the lead back with a 9-0 run as Meyer-Plettner scored his first six points before Asher Kramer sank a three for the lead with 3:25 left in the third quarter. The lead flip-flopped five more times before the quarter ended, with the hosts taking a 45-42 lead on a Dillan Cooper layup and a Jonathan Chapple putback.

Anthony Lacy’s and-1 on a putback with 5:57 to go in the game gave the Wildcats a 52-47 advantage, but they couldn’t pull away. Grayson scored the next four points, answered another Lacy basket to trim the lead to 54-53 with 3:45 left and hit a 3-pointer with 2:29 to go to answer one by Zaymani Mitchell. His ninth and final assist came on Ahmed Gulaid’s layup with 2:05 left, giving the Bulldogs their first lead of the fourth quarter at 60-59.

Gulaid’s block on the next possession had Oakland Tech running in transition, but a Lacy steal and Chapple contested layup put the hosts on top again, 61-60 with 1:33 left. Following a timeout, Meyer-Plettner served as the pivot man on a backdoor sequence that started with Kramer, and Grayson gave the Bulldogs the lead for good.

“In the second half, we played as a team, trusted each other and trusted ourselves to make shots. When we do that, we can beat anybody,” said Meyer-Plettner, who scored all 13 of his points in the second half. “When we’re running our offense, we try to get easy looks, and down the stretch, we were able to get them.”

Sacred Heart Cathedral transfer Caleb Rollins forced a Wildcat miss out of a timeout, and after Kramer grabbed the rebound, Oakland had to foul with just a five-second differential between the game clock and shot clock. Grayson made both free throws with 30.7 left, and after a missed Oakland layup and putback, Gulaid’s free throw with 18.7 left made it a two-possession game. A Rollins layup inside the final five seconds provided the final margin.

“They took the game from us. We didn’t respond,” said Oakland head coach Orlando Watkins. “Their zone gave us problems, and once we got out of our flow, we weren’t able to get it back. We had a couple of chip layups that we missed, and we blew a lot of defensive assignments.”

Most of those missed defensive assignments led to baskets by Grayson, who earned high praise from Watkins.

“He’s a competitor,” Watkins said. “He reminds me of the old-school Oakland guards, the Dame Lillards, the Gary Paytons, the Jason Kidds, where they just will their team to victory, and that’s what he did.”

Grayson was locked in from the start, dishing out three assists on an early 9-0 run, but he scored just four points in the first half, with two coming on a putback.

“I was trying to force it, putting up dumb shots,” the junior guard admitted. “Second half, I trusted my teammates to hit me on backcut layups.”

While Grayson struggled early, Kramer scored eight of his 13 in the first half, including two free throws with 29.7 left in the second quarter after the Wildcats had taken their largest lead at 33-24 behind a 12-0 run that included eight of Chapple’s team-high 14 points.

Chapple also had seven rebounds and five assists, while fellow Pinole Valley transfer Isaac Johnson scored nine of his 10 points in the first half and collected seven rebounds of his own. Lacy finished with 10 points and eight boards, Mitchell scored nine and Cooper finished with eight.

Kramer had five assists, and if NHL-style secondary assists were credited, he would have had one on the go-ahead basket. He also had a team-high eight rebounds, while Gulaid finished with eight points.