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In-person evaluations, especially during grassroots spring and summer, matter a great deal to college basketball coaches. Without them, Roddy Gayle Jr. understands, they can’t evaluate players against top-flight competition.
So when the four-star 2022 shooting guard got back into the car to take the five-hour return drive to Youngstown, New York, he recognized why Ohio State hadn’t extended him a scholarship. Chris Holtmann and assistant coach Jake Diebler had told him they wanted to watch him play on the circuit before making that move.
Then, in March, the situation changed.
Since the Nike, Adidas and Under Armour circuits are at a standstill due to concerns about the coronavirus, college basketball coaches can’t get in-person evaluations done on targets. Instead, they have to rely on film, like what his high school coach at Lewiston-Porter sent Diebler. It impressed Ohio State’s coaches to such a degree that they got in contact and decided to extend an offer last Wednesday.
“That's when they gave me the news that they were going to offer me and they were going to try to build a relationship through the recruiting process,” Gayle told Eleven Warriors the day after receiving the offer.
Had the coronavirus scare reached the point where nobody knows when games will be played, Ohio State’s staff likely would have wanted to see Gayle play in-person before offering. But the pandemic has begun to alter recruiting timelines.
“I'm just thankful to get the offer because a school so close and as good as it is is definitely one of my top schools that I would like to attend,” Gayle said.
Gayle, a 2022 prospect ranked 42nd overall nationally and No. 1 in New York, also might not have picked up an offer had he not visited a couple of months ago. Even that trip nearly got canceled at the last minute once his high school team got knocked out of the playoffs the day before he was set to leave.
He decided it was still worth it to make the visit, though, and saw Ohio State beat Michigan at the Schottenstein Center on March 1.
“During the game is when it got really rowdy,” Gayle said. “That's the atmosphere I want to play for, so I kind of found it interesting just the cooperation with everybody and how into it people were. The fan section, the student section, the parent section, adults, the kids, everybody was kind of into the game.”
Not knowing much about Ohio State beyond its basketball program before visiting, Gayle got the lay of the land from Diebler. The assistant coach took him around the facilities, showing him the locker room and practice gym along with the campus before the game tipped off.
For Gayle, it’s still early in the process. As a New York native who’s already also visited Rutgers, Syracuse and Wake Forest and has offers from Connecticut, Xavier, Georgetown, Tennessee, Georgia, Oklahoma and Alabama, it won’t be easy by any means for the Buckeyes to land him.
But Ohio State’s targeting 6-foot-4, 160-pounder early in the 2022 cycle with an idea of what it'd be getting if he eventually ended up in Columbus.
“They say they like my size, length at the one, two spot,” Gayle said. “So they want me to come in and fit right into the role and be the scorer that I am and I can be. That's basically what I want to do, so it's like hearing what I wanted to hear.”
