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Newsstand: How Michigan's Roddy Gayle has impressed in 6th man role

Anthony Broomeby: Anthony Broome20 hours agoanthonytbroome

The Michigan Wolverines have deployed senior guard Roddy Gayle Jr. as their sixth man on the floor this year, and head coach Dusty May spoke about his role during his Monday press conference previewing the game against Villanova.

“It was a strange deal [last year] where we just thought Roddy needed the ball in his hands a little bit more, and when he’s playing with Danny [Wolf] and Vlad [Goldin] and Tre [Donaldson], he just didn’t have the usage that we thought he would, which would be more beneficial to have.

“This year, we’ve went with the policy that if you miss a couple practices with a minor injury, then we play the group that’s been working with cohesion of practice. That happened with Roddy, happened with Adai. When Roddy had the minor injury, I can’t remember the timetable now. He played really, really well with that next unit, and there wasn’t any drop off with the second unit. We just thought, man, this makes a lot of sense for him to be whatever we need him to be in the second group, but also, it helps him because his usage is probably doubled with that group versus if he was playing with Yaxel and Elliot and Adai and these guys that are also high usage guys. They’re not high-volume scorers, but they’re high usage guys.”

Gayle is averaging 11.3 points per game, 3.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game in 22.6 minutes per night. He and Michigan are back in action on Tuesday night against Villanova at 6:30 p.m. on Fox Sports 1.

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Michigan quote of the day

“We’ll see, there’s a lot of them. I think it’s a special group of freshman incoming guys. Talking about the guys that are early enrolling and all that, we’ll see. Obviously, I think the talent of Savion Hiter is special. I think he could do it. Could be one of those receivers on the outside lanes, really excited about those guys. The linemen are all going to compete, so it’s a great group. The corners as well, linebackers, I mean, it’s a complete group, so we’ll see as we get through spring practice. I can answer that question better as we get to the summer.”

– Sherrone Moore on contributors early from the 2026 class

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