PITTSBURGH—With Jack Gohlke lighting it up from 3-point range, burying 10 long-distance shots, 14th-seeded Oakland delivered the first true shock of this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, stunning third-seeded Kentucky 80–76 in the first round of South Region play Thursday night.
The Grizzlies (24–11), from Rochester, Mich., sent the Wildcats (23–10) to another early March exit behind Gohlke, a graduate transfer who finished with 32 points, and some late shot-making by his teammates. Trey Townsend had 17 points for the Horizon League champions. DQ Cole added 12, including a 3 from the corner with 28 seconds left that gave the Grizzlies a four-point lead.
Antonio Reeves led Kentucky with 27 points. Tre Mitchell added 14 and Rob Dillingham scored 10, but the Wildcats and their roster stacked with NBA prospects spent most of the night trying—and failing—to chase down Gohlke.
The 6-foot-3 guard, who came to the Grizzlies this season after playing for Division II Hillsdale College in Michigan, made 10 of 20 attempts from 3-point range, seven in the first half. He fell one short of Jeff Fryer’s NCAA Tournament record, set in 1990 for Loyola Marymount. Gohlke’s only other points came on free throws after he was fouled while attempting a 3.
Gohlke cooled off a bit over the final 20 minutes while often getting picked up at halfcourt, but his teammates helped pick up the slack. Oakland did not trail over the final 14:32 to give the program its first victory in the round of 64.
The Wildcats came in as 13 1/2-point favorites, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, but with a poor recent track record in March under Coach John Calipari. Kentucky hasn’t advanced past the tournament’s opening weekend since 2019, an uncomfortably long stretch for Mr. Calipari and the second-winningest program in NCAA history.
Mr. Calipari said his job is to take the pressure off the shoulders of his young players and place it on his. It must have felt awfully heavy at times while Gohlke and the Bulldogs kept pace with the second-highest-scoring team in the country.
Meantime, it was a triumph four decades in the making for Oakland Coach Greg Kampe, the longest-tenured coach in Division I. The 68-year-old has spent 40 years at the commuter school about 30 miles north of downtown Detroit.
Gohlke was the Horizon League’s sixth man of the year thanks to his outside shooting. All but eight of his 335 field goal attempts during the regular season were 3s, and he now has made an NCAA-leading 131 this season. He kept firing away against Kentucky, particularly during an electric first half that had the majority of fans on their feet and the Wildcats on their heels.
Gohlke stuck out his tongue after his fifth 3. When his sixth fell through the net, he turned around and mimicked Michael Jordan’s famous shoulder shrug during the 1992 NBA finals. Gohlke—who of course wears No. 3—then banked in his seventh as the Grizzlies built a 38–35 halftime lead that had everyone in the crowd not wearing Kentucky blue roaring, just as Mr. Kampe had hoped.
That momentum carried all the way to the final buzzer.
Gohlke ended the game with the ball in his hands after one final Kentucky miss as the Grizzlies became the 23rd No. 14 seed to win a first-round game since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
