McPherson senior Gabe Pyle hasn’t been too surprised by the response to his state tournament exploits in his basketball crazy hometown.
 
It’s the reactions he’s encountered in other places that left him taken aback.
 
“I went to the March Madness games on Saturday in Wichita and two people I didn’t even recognize must have seen it online somewhere,” Pyle said. “They said those were some great shots and a great state tournament run.
 
“It was kind of unreal how people just know that.”
 
If you haven’t heard, Pyle added flavor to the Bullpups’ 15^th boys state championship in mid-March. Shoot, he added some habanero-level spice, hitting not one, but two game-winning, buzzer-beating shots to propel McPherson into the Class 4A title game, where it defeated Rock Creek 53-44 at Salina’s Tony’s Pizza Event Center.
 
After helping the Bullpups complete a 25-0 season his junior year with an overtime victory over Hugoton in the 4A championship game, Pyle raised the bar on clutch performances in his final state appearance. His baseline-to-baseline drive and 12-foot floater with one second remaining gave McPherson a 60-59 overtime victory over Baldwin in the opening-day quarterfinals.
 
Two days later, Pyle’s spin move and 15-foot jumper from the left elbow – also with one second to play – lifted the fourth-seeded Bullpups to a 52-50 double-overtime victory over previously unbeaten Ottawa and kept their state title defense alive.
 
“There’s nobody else that I would have rather had taking those shots,” McPherson coach Kurt Kinnamon said. “He’s willing to take on that role where if you miss it, you’re the goat and if you make it, you’re the hero. He’s man enough to accept whichever one it was.”
 

Pyle, a KSHSAA Covered All-State Top 5 selection, has certainly lived up to his family name.
 
Much of McPherson’s rich basketball tradition has been established with a Pyle on the roster. Gabe’s grandfather, Tom, was an all-state player for the Bullpups in the mid-1960s before going on to play collegiately at Iowa State.
 
Pyle and his cousin, Jett, a junior, played for the Bullpups this season as the team finished 21-4 and made a third consecutive title-game appearance. Last year, Jett’s older brother, Owen, gave McPherson a trio of Pyles for the unbeaten march to a title.
 
Gabe Pyle has grown up with plenty of outstanding basketball players in his own house.
 
The youngest of David and Deedra Pyle’s five children, Gabe watched three older brothers – Drew, Ben and Sam – play for McPherson. Drew and Ben were on state championship teams and earned the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association’s Mr. Basketball honor as seniors.
 
David and Deedra played at McPherson in the early-1990s, with David part of back-to-back Class 5A championship teams. The Pyles’ lone daughter, Grace, was a former Bullpup standout who contributed to the family’s March Madness this year by leading Pittsburg State to the NCAA Division II national semifinals.
 
Her postseason success resulted in David going to Gabe’s state semifinal game in Salina while Deedra attended Grace’s Division II Central Regional opener in Pittsburg on March 14.
 
“I think there’s always been a little bit of pressure on me, especially being the youngest in my family, and seeing a bunch of successful siblings who’ve won state championships, won all-state awards, won Mr. Kansas Basketball awards,” Pyle said. “I think that pressure just made me want to be the best I can and put in the work to prove I belong in the Pyle family.”
 
Gabe, like many of the Pyles discovered through the years, found the Bullpup spotlight occasionally leaves a mark.
 
As a sophomore, Pyle helped McPherson return to the 4A state tournament and reach the championship game by knocking off defending champion Bishop Miege 60-54 in the semifinals. But in the title game against Hugoton, Pyle missed all seven of his field-goal attempts and his lone free throw as the Bullpups fell 67-58.
 
“He never outwardly said it, but you could really tell that he felt like a lot of that was on him, which it wasn’t,” Kinnamon said. “That was a team thing, but that’s the kind of kid that he is.”
 
Pyle’s viewpoint set him on a course for success.
 
“That game alone just really made me hungry,” he said. “It made me work like I’ve never worked before. That game stayed in the back of my mind the whole spring, summer and into that next fall, and then when I came back my junior year, I was ready to go out and just kill.
 
“That was definitely the mentality going into it because I did not want to feel that type of way about any game again, ever. I’m pretty sure that paid off.”
 
Indeed, it did. Pyle joined teammate Kyden Thompson on the All-Class 4A first team as a junior and redeemed himself in a title-game rematch with Hugoton. He scored 17 points against the Eagles as McPherson erased an 11-point, fourth-quarter deficit to force the extra period. Pyle sealed the 65-59 victory with a pair of free throws with six seconds remaining.
 
This season, the 6-foot-6 Pyle averaged 21 points and 5.1 rebounds, and tied a single-game school record with 44 points in a victory over Buhler. Pyle hit 11 of 13 3-pointers in the contest, surpassing his dad’s former teammate, Brian Henson, for most in a Bullpup game.
 
Pyle’s 1,186 career points rank sixth in McPherson history. He finished second in career steals with 190 and fifth in blocked shots with 78.
 
“He took on the role of just showing kids the right way to go about it, the right way to practice every day, the right way to be serious about things and still have fun,” Kinnamon said. “He’s a kid who has worked hard on his game. Basketball is extremely important to him and that rubs off on everybody else.
 
“Part of that comes from the family he was raised in, part of that comes from the community he was raised in. It’s important here.”
 
Pyle and the Bullpups avoided the need for high drama in their finale, building a 15-7 lead against Rock Creek in the first quarter and stretching the advantage to 36-24 after three quarters. Gabe and Jett each finished with a team-high 13 points as McPherson gave Kinnamon his eighth state title, moving him into a second-place tie with Newton’s Frank Lindley and Kapaun Mt. Carmel’s Steve Eck, this year’s 5A champion coach, for most in Kansas boys basketball history.
 

Kinnamon, who coached Gabe’s older brothers, said the youngest Pyle matched their abilities to perform in pressure situations. Pyle’s game-winner in the quarterfinals, which came after Baldwin’s Leo Schoenberger scored with nine seconds remaining to give the Bulldogs a one-point lead, stood out.
 
“He probably could have saved a few years on my life if we wouldn’t have had to do that,” Kinnamon said. “But there was a strange, calm feeling as we got the ball in his hands and he’s heading up the floor.
 
“He throws up a runner and it goes in, and he knew exactly how much time was on the clock and what needed to be done. There was a sense of calm about me.”
 
Within 48 hours, Pyle did it again against Ottawa. He then joined his mom for a brief phone call to share the moment before she watched Grace’s game tip off in Pittsburg.
 
“The word is magical, honestly,” Pyle said. “As a kid, you grow up dreaming of hitting a game-winning shot in a big game and everyone going crazy for you. Who can believe the dream coming true once, let alone twice?”