BUFFALO — Roddy Gayle Jr. was built for the postseason. He thrives in it and he loves the bright lights.
The Niagara Falls native has played in 19 playoff games during his career, averaging 10.3 points per game, while shooting 44% from the field and 25% from three.
Tonight he scored 14 points as part of a 101-80 win for top-seeded Michigan over No. 16 Howard in the first round of the NCAA tournament, Thursday, at the Keybank Center.
While he did not start this game, Gayle entered with 17:41 on the clock and he made an impact in the opening 20 minutes, scoring nine points on 4-for-4 shooting.
“I just think just desperation,” Gayle Jr. said. “Win or lose, lose you go home. Obviously being my senior year, my goal is just to make it a game and win. That’s every one of our goals meeting together in the summertime. I would say there’s no change. I just look at it as a new season, no stats, no percentages, just go out there and play free and play hard for each other.”
The biggest story of the opening half though was the fact that the underdog Bison were able to hang in there with one of the tournament favorites as they headed into the half down 50-46.
This game was Gayle’s second with double-digits since Jan. 2, after having scored 15 against Michigan State on March 8. This season, Gayle Jr. has double-digit points in nine games. His season-high for points came on Nov. 25, when he scored 17 points against Auburn.
Despite having a large contingent of family and friends in the arena, Gayle was not worried about that when he first stepped onto the floor.
“I tried my hardest to not look in that direction, just because I know I’m focused on the game plan and playing hard each and every possession with my teammates, but at the end of the day, when you kind of hear the crowd erupt, just all the nerves and the stresses kind of lift away, and you just play free,” Gayle Jr. said.
Hodgson’s Bulls can’t overcome early funk
The University of South Florida has taken on the personality of its coach.
South Florida head coach Bryan Hodgson could have given up multiple times. And his team wouldn’t give up either in the program’s first tournament appearance since 2012.
No. 11 South Florida was down by 23 points in the second half but managed to fight their way back into the game over the last 10 minutes and trim their deficit to as few as the final margin of four points.
The South Florida comeback came up just short in an 83-79 loss to No. 6 Louisville to end its season in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Thursday, at the Keybank Center.
“We felt like coming in that we had a chance to beat them,” South Florida head coach Bryan Hodgson said. “We obviously did not play well. A big part of that is they did a great job guarding us, and we shot ourselves in the foot in the second half getting down 23. In the first half, didn’t really put ourselves in a position to win the basketball game.”
Last year, when Hodgson was coaching Izaiyah Nelson and Joseph Pinion at Arkansas State the trio managed to erase a 27-point deficit against UAB and win the game. It was something that was in their heads when they were trying to come back from 23 down against Louisville.
Spartans stay consistent in first round
In this game, Nelson and Pinion were first and second on their team in scoring with Pinion leading all scorers with 27, while Nelson had 22. The two played a big role in South Florida’s full-court press with 10 minutes to go and helped spark their comeback.
The two were key pieces in a locker room that Hodgson called the best group he’s ever coached.
“Everybody goes through something in their life,” Nelson said. “So hearing Coach B’s story, and … how he didn’t have a family and things like that, like I didn’t have a father growing up. So him having his father come to the game tonight, it just sparked something into me because I didn’t have a dad growing up. It was just my siblings and my mom. So just seeing that, I would do anything for this man right here next to me.”
The last time Michigan State did not make it to the second round was in the 2020-21 season when they were an 11-seed. That team lost in the First Four to end their season.
The last time that the Spartans lost as a single-digit seed in the tournament was in the 2015-16 season when they were upset as a two seed by Middle Tennessee State 90-81.
That streak will not end this year after a dismantling of No. 14 North Dakota State 92-67 on Thursday, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at the Keybank Center.
The fact that they have had a lot of success in the postseason is not a surprise to redshirt sophomore Jeremy Fears Jr. Instead it is expected.
“I think, honestly, just the schedule we get,” Michigan State point guard Jeremy Fears Jr. said. “Every year we probably have one of the hardest schedules, and Coach (Tom Izzo) sets that up. And day in and day out, it’s a grind to keep getting better, and the end goal is to win championships. We want to win games, but championships is the goal. So that’s kind of set from the summer preseason and then at the beginning of the season.”
Fears finished with seven points on 2-for-6 shooting. Michigan State’s scoring leader was Carson Cooper with a 20 points, tying a career-high for the senior.
One of the things that NDSU struggled with was shooting the three where they shot 6-for-25 from beyond the arc.
“They played a really good ballclub that’s extremely well-coached,” North Dakota state head coach David Richman said. “There are some size and physicality, athleticism things that we don’t see on a regular basis that are really hard to simulate. Shooting is one part of the game. It wasn’t the part that cost us. It would have been nicer to make some shots, absolutely.”