Ten-for-20.
In school, it’s not very good — failing, actually.
But in the NCAA Tournament, 10-for-20 makes you a legend.
Ten-for-20 earns you more than 25,000 followers on Instagram.
Ten-for-20 earns you a spot on ESPN with hosts Scott Van Pelt and Pat McAfee.
Ten-for-20 earns you your own clothing line.
And most importantly, 10-for-20 earns you a spot in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
In Thursday night’s win over third-seeded Kentucky, Oakland’s Jack Gohlke shot, you guessed it, 10-for-20 from beyond the arc. Head coach Greg Kampe said on Wednesday before the game that a win over the talented Wildcats would “change [his] players’ lives,” and no man in America’s life has changed more in the last day than Gohlke’s.
He nearly single-handedly carried Oakland to its second-ever NCAA Tournament victory and its first-ever Round of 32 appearance. He finished the game with 32 points, and he won over the hearts of America in the process.
“Yeah, it’s definitely been crazy,” Gohlke said after the game. “When I finally did open my phone, it was overwhelming, to say the least, which I definitely appreciate all the support of all the people sending me messages and things like that. It means a lot.”
Making 10 3-pointers in an NCAA Tournament game is a feat of its own — one only four other players have ever accomplished — but firing off 20 shots from distance is no small task, either. Box score watchers who don’t know Gohlke and his game would argue he forced a few, but Kampe vehemently disagrees.
“I want him shooting it every time,” Kampe said on Friday. “He can’t take a bad shot. Now, have I said to him, ‘Did we really need that one?’ Yeah. But he knows, if he doesn’t take one, I’m going to scream at him.”
With each 3-pointer that Gohlke made, his legend grew, and so did his “brand.”
A week before the NCAA Tournament, Gohlke likely would have asked, “What brand?”
But when you sink 3-pointers in the biggest game of the season against the best opponent on the biggest stage, you develop a brand. And that came to fruition on Friday when Gohlke announced a few different NIL partnerships.
Gohlke released two different clothing lines in partnership with Barstool Sports and The NIL Store. He also signed an NIL deal with TurboTax, and he made a post on the social media platform X.
“Me and my team got to the next round by making all our moves count,” Gohlke said in the video posted on X. “Just like TurboTax, who makes all your moves count this tax season.”
Gohlke read the line while shooting a 3-pointer in the ballroom of a hotel while doing his iconic ‘shrug’ that went viral on Thursday.
While Gohlke drained 3-pointer after 3-pointer, he said he witnessed something he’s never experienced in his six seasons playing college basketball.
“It’s kind of one of those things like once you’re out there on the court, you don’t — me personally, I don’t really notice what’s going on around me, and I think that’s important as players. I don’t think any of us really notice too much about what’s going on, but I will say that yesterday was the first time ever in my career that, especially in the first half towards the end, I noticed like if I caught the ball, like I could just hear the crowd like kind of collect their breath. And that — I had never noticed that on the court, anything like that. Just hearing that big of a crowd, that type of thing go on, that was kind of cool, but also just a surreal experience of everyone’s kind of on the edge of their seat whenever I touched the ball.”
Gohlke is arguably the most talked-about person in sports right now. It’s safe to say Kampe’s prediction of a win over Kentucky changing his players’ lives was accurate.
“Their [lives] got changed [Thursday night], but it could get changed a hell of a lot more if we keep this thing going,” Kampe said.