6 Role Players Who Took Over March Madness

by Jeremy Block - 3/31/2026

Role players who took over March Madness Kyle Guy Virginia Cavaliers

There’s a pattern in March Madness that shows up year after year. A team starts to fold under pressure, and then out of nowhere, a role player takes over the game and starts playing like he was the top scoring option all season. Before the tournament? He might have been putting up 10 points a game on a good night. Then March arrives, and suddenly he looks like a completely different player.

The stars still matter, but the tournament has a way of reshaping expectations. Role players turn into temporary stars, and players who weren’t expected to carry a team end up deciding games. These are six players who weren’t supposed to dominate, yet they somehow find themselves dictating outcomes. And that’s where things get interesting.

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Luke Hancock (2013)

Rick Pitino had a loaded roster when Louisville entered the 2013 tournament as the overall number one seed, and tucked somewhere in that group was a role player who told you everything about what was coming.

Across six tournament games, Luke Hancock averaged 11.5 points on 42% shooting from the floor and 39% from beyond the arc, helping stretch defenses and making opposing game plans fall apart. The numbers across that run are even more impressive when you consider he averaged just 8 points per game during the regular season. And he wasn’t doing it in isolation - he was playing alongside players like Peyton Siva, Montrezl Harrell, and Russ Smith, all future NBA players.

But where Hancock made his mark was in the Final Four against Wichita State. He scored 20 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including 3-of-5 from three, stepping into a much bigger role when it mattered most.

Then came the championship game against Michigan. Hancock took it even further, scoring 22 points on 83% shooting and earning Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. A role player who built his season around small moments ended up leading the way on the biggest stage.

And that’s what makes March Madness what it is.

Donte DiVincenzo (2018)

Villanova already had a championship-caliber roster with Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson at the forefront, but the national title game turned into the Donte DiVincenzo show in a way nobody saw coming.

Coming off the bench, he put up 31 points on 10-of-15 shooting against Michigan, adding 5 rebounds and 3 assists in a performance that helped Villanova clinch the national title. The funny thing is, during conference play, he didn’t score more than 10 points in three different games.

It wasn’t just the scoring that stood out—it was how natural it looked. He didn’t play selfish or try to hunt for his shots. He moved without the ball, finished in rhythm, knocked down 3-pointers, and punished every defensive rotation that came his way. Throughout the tournament, he averaged 15.8 points per game, but even that doesn’t fully capture how much he impacted the title run.

The championship game became his breakout game on the biggest stage. Villanova trusted him in key moments throughout the tournament, but that final performance turned him from a rotation piece into the story everyone remembered.

Jack Gohlke (2024)

How could this list come together without Oakland legend Jack Gohlke? Anyone watching Oakland in the 2024 March Madness tournament was left asking the same question: how does one shooter become that untouchable against a 2-seed and a 3-seed? Gohlke delivered one of the most absurd shooting performances in recent tournament memory across the Round of 64 and Round of 32.

He kicked things off against Kentucky in the First Round, and from the opening tip started knocking down threes. The Wildcats did what they could to keep the 13-point scorer off rhythm, but it didn’t matter. Gohlke led the Golden Grizzlies with 32 points, hitting 10 threes and sending Kentucky home early.

From there, matched up with the 3-seed Purdue Boilermakers, Gohlke kept the momentum going, adding 22 more points with six made threes. Despite Oakland falling short in overtime, 79-73, Gohlke etched his name into March Madness history. Defenses couldn’t leave him, couldn’t help off him, and every screen demanded the defense's full attention.

Tyus Jones (2015)

Heading into the 2015 NCAA Tournament, the Duke Blue Devils had all the attention, and it made sense with the roster they had. With future NBA players like Jahlil Okafor, Justice Winslow, and Grayson Allen in the lineup, they were a problem for opposing defenses.

However, as the tournament went on, it was point guard Tyus Jones who started taking on more of the scoring load. He went from averaging 11 points and 5.6 assists during the regular season to 13 points per game in the tournament while shooting over 37% from three. The jump in averages doesn’t look like much on paper, but his impact on the offensive end told a different story.

After back-to-back 15-point games in the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight, the title game against Wisconsin is where it really showed up. Jones finished with 23 points on 57% shooting, including 2-of-3 from three, and earned Most Outstanding Player honors.

Doug Edert (2022)

Going back to 2022, Saint Peter’s punched a ticket to the tournament as a 15-seed, and nobody outside that locker room expected it to last. Nothing suggested this team would still be playing after the first round.

That changed quickly. With a roster most people couldn’t name a single player from, it ended up being a 6 '2 guard coming off the bench who became the difference maker. Doug Edert, averaging just under nine points a night, turned into the Peacocks main scoring option the second the tournament started.

In the Round of 64, against 2-seeded Kentucky, in just 25 minutes, he put up 20 points on 5-of-7 shooting and 3-of-5 from deep. Two days later against Murray State, Edert followed it up with 13 points on 4-of-6 shooting in just 24 minutes on the floor, helping Saint Peters move on to the Sweet Sixteen. Performances like this are just a reminder of how talented these players are, even the ones sitting on the bench most of the year.

Kyle Guy (2019)

Wrapping up the list of March Madness role players who stole the spotlight, it comes back to the Virginia Cavaliers and Kyle Guy in 2019. Look, the roster was loaded with talent: Ty Jerome, De’Andre Hunter, Jay Huff—but when the tournament tightened up, it was Guy who kept the Cavaliers alive.

Unlike most players on this list, Guy wasn’t an unknown player by any means. He averaged around 15 points per game that season and was already a key piece. But once Virginia reached the Elite Eight against Purdue, he took over.

Guy scored 25 points on 8-of-15 shooting, including 4-of-9 from 3-point land, in 42 minutes and carried the offense through a tight overtime win, 80-75, that sent Virginia to the Final Four.

Then came the championship game against Texas Tech. Virginia leaned into the hot hand, and Guy delivered again, scoring 24 points on over 50% shooting while hitting 4-of-9 from beyond the arc. His scoring helped push the game into overtime, where Virginia secured the national title.

When the games got tight and possessions started to matter more, it was Guy taking and making the shots that kept Virginia ahead of the problem

By the end of that run, Guy wasn’t just a piece in the system—he was the player defenses had to account for every time down the floor, and he proved he could deliver on the biggest stage.

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Start:	March 31, 2026 @ 10:30 PM
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6 Role Players Who Took Over March Madness

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