Williams Dismissed From Squad

Oakland University announced today that Tim Williams was dismissed from the program. Here’s the entire press release:

The Oakland University Department of Athletics announced the dismissal of Tim Williams from the OU men’s basketball team for a violation of team and department policy. Williams’ dismissal is effective immediately.

Wow. I’m surprised and very disappointed. Williams has a great deal of talent and I really expected him to become more of an impact player this year.   I realize everybody’s excited about the incoming class, but Williams departure cannot be considered anything but a significant loss to the team at this stage.

Recruiting: Cadillac’s Ben Simons

According to Scout.com, Cadillac High School’s Ben Simons has Oakland listed amongst his schools of interest. Now, I admit, it’s a pretty crowded list. OU is joined by no less than ten other programs.

Central Michigan would seem like the leader in vying for Simons’ perimeter orientated game, but with that many DI programs in-play, perhaps Coach Kampe could land the 6′8″ small forward.

Finally, The Schedule Is Out

The long awaited 2008-09 schedule has been released. I can sum it up in a single word — at. This year’s Grizzlies will spend a significant amount of time on the road. OU is at Oregon, at Syracuse, at Iowa, at Kansas State, at Cleveland State, at Wisconsin-Green Bay and at Eastern Michigan in addition to all their Summit League road trips. This doesn’t include a couple of pre-conference tournament games in Las Vegas and the two games at The Palace — one versus Michigan, the other against Michigan State.

Before 2009 begins, Oakland will play 11 road games (including two road conference games — at SUU and at UMKC), the two games at The Palace (which count as home dates although we all know there will be more Wolverines and Spartans supporters in the crowd) and only three games on campus. The first two months of the season include a string of eight consecutive appearances as the visitors. Ouch.

Rochester College (the season opener), Toledo and a New Year’s Eve tilt with South Dakota State are the three games at the O’Rena in ‘08. Not a wealth of marketing opportunities in that group, with apologies to all. In light of all the off-season hype, OU certainly could have used a few more early home games.

The 2009 portion of the schedule is filled with the standard Summit League foes. The highlights include: NDSU, the probable pre-season favorite, comes to OU January 2. The Grizzlies visit Fargo on January 29. The Grizzlies travel to Oral Roberts on January 10 and ORU come back here on February 5.

Per usual, OU’s slate is not only littered with road dates, but some tough opposition as well. If Oakland can somehow muster something close to a .500 mark after the first two months, I might be willing to embrace it as a success. I’ll give that more thought as the season draws nearer. We’ve still got weeks to analyze the entire schedule, so I’ll save my predictions for later.

However, the Oakland Press‘ Dave Pemberton has decided to jump on the opportunity and takes a shot at predicting the Grizzlies non-conference record at his blog. I’d also encourage you to check out the Grizzlies message board to see what our fellow fans are thinking about the 08-09 schedule.