Ohio State guard Roddy Gayle Jr. hits transfer portal after breakout season
COLUMBUS — After a breakout sophomore season at Ohio State, Roddy Gayle Jr. has entered the transfer portal.
The 6-foot-4, 210-pound guard from Niagara Falls, New York, averaged 13.5 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game in 2023-24. As a freshman, he averaged only 4.6 points, 1.6 rebounds and 0.9 assists per game in nearly half the minutes (30.9 per game in 2023-24 and 16.3 per game in 2022-23).
Gayle started 35 games in Year 2 after starting 11 games his first year with the program, including the final 10, which culminated in his head-turning Big Ten Tournament run. That’s when Gayle burst onto the scene: After struggling to find his offensive game throughout his freshman season, he averaged 14.7 points over the Buckeyes’ final three games in the league tourney.
Gayle shot a blistering 9-of-10 from beyond the arc during Ohio State’s four-day stay in Chicago’s United Center, as the Buckeyes became the first 13 seed to ever advance to the Big Ten Tournament semifinals. He scored nine points in a win over Iowa, 15 points in a quarterfinal win over Michigan State and 20 points in a semifinal loss to Purdue.
Although Gayle’s 3-point shooting took a dip in his second year at Ohio State — during which he converted only 28.4% of his long-range attempts — he extrapolated his Big Ten Tournament scoring impact over the course of his sophomore season.
Gayle didn’t miss a game despite battling a nagging ankle injury and, down the stretch, a nagging hand injury, too.
He scored 20 or more points four times, most notably a career-high 32 points in an overtime win over West Virginia. Gayle also recorded six rebounds and five assists that night in Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.
His second-best scoring output came against Alabama in the Emerald Coast Classic. Gayle piled up 23 points on 8-of-11 shooting, helping the Buckeyes upset an eventual Final Four-bound Crimson Tide squad.
Gayle scored at least 15 points 15 times this season, ranking third on the team in points per game behind only Jamison Battle (15.3) and Bruce Thornton (15.7).
Gayle also averaged an increased 5.2 rebounds per game in the 11 games he played in after Jake Diebler took over as head coach. Diebler challenged Gayle to attack the glass, and he also held the athletic guard accountable on the defensive end, where Gayle flashed talent as a two-way player but still has room to grow. Turnovers were a pain point for Gayle in his expanded role, as he averaged 2.4 giveaways per game and, at one point, turned the ball over at least three times in seven straight games.
Gayle — a product of Wasatch Academy in Mt. Pleasant, Utah — was signed by former head coach Chris Holtmann, who was fired on Feb. 14 after the Buckeyes’ second straight Big Ten slide.
While Thornton and center Felix Okpara are coming back, Gayle is the third member of Ohio State’s eighth-ranked 2022 recruiting class to either enter the transfer portal or declare for the NBA Draft since arriving on campus. Sharpshooting but reserve guard Bowen Hardman already hit the portal this offseason, and the Utah Jazz selected wing Brice Sensabaugh in the first round last year.
