If you ask 100 college-basketball fans to name the best 3-point shooter in Michigan, you'll probably get a nearly unanimous answer.
There might be a few unusual picks, but a vast majority would immediately choose Nik Stauskas.
Open the question up to the history of college basketball, and you'll get a lot more names. Steve Smith and Shawn Respert from Michigan State. Glen Rice from Michigan. Central Michigan fans will bring up Dan Majerle, and old-times will tell you how many 3-pointers Cazzie Russell would have made every night.
In the next few days, though, Oakland's Travis Bader is going to take that crown -- not just for Michigan, but for the entire country.
The Golden Grizzlies play at Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon, and Bader needs just three 3-pointers to break JJ Redick's Division I career record of 455.
It's taken Bader longer to catch Redick than anyone expected. He normally shoots well over 40 percent from behind the arc, but as Oakland entered its first season in the Horizon League, things changed. Bader found himself trying to adjust to a new league while dealing with the pressure of getting close to an NCAA record, and didn't handle it well.
"It's taken a toll on him," Oakland coach Greg Kampe told The Oakland Press. "It's too much publicity. It's killing him."
He came into Friday night's game shooting just 29 percent on 3-pointers in league play, and still seven short of Redick's record. A packed house at the O-Rena wanted to see him break the record at home, but the shot still wasn't there. He missed five of his six threes in the first half, as the Grizzlies fell behind Youngstown State.
At halftime, Bader went to Kampe and asked if they could run more plays for him -- going back to the system Oakland ran before the slump started. Kampe agreed, and Bader quickly drained his first two shots of the second half. He couldn't quite get to the record, finishing with five 3-pointers and 26 points in Oakland's 86-85 win, but he's confident that his shot is back.
"I was just sick of missing shots and this 'Bader is in a slump' stuff," he said.
There's no question how he got this close to the record, and how he got out of the slump. When Oakland was closed because of the bitter cold earlier this week, but Kampe and women's coach Jeff Tungate tweeted about seeing Bader spending the entire day in the gym.
"(You) get what (You) earn, and when he breaks the record, he will have EARNED it," Kampe said, after posting a picture of Bader shooting several hours after practice. "He will probably be there at 9:30 when I get back."
Both Bader and Kampe hoped that the record would be broken at home -- with the exception of the win over Michigan, most of Oakland's D-I accomplishments have taken place away from campus -- but at this point, they'll just happy for it to be over.
