Tyler Patterson remained true to Montana State Bobcats

He relished the perfect weather and the atmosphere at the Gold Rush football game. And he was sold on then-head coach Danny Sprinkle’s vision for what the program could be.

Patterson liked what he saw, and the visit ended with him knowing he wouldn’t be going anywhere else.

“I kind of thought that this town was like a hidden gem, and you could tell that it was going to go in the right direction in terms of the basketball program,” Patterson said. “And then, obviously, the city’s been growing like crazy. It just seemed like a perfect fit.”

Patterson committed to the Bobcats in September 2019 and arrived on campus the next fall. He then proceeded to have a career that might never be equaled at Montana State or in the Big Sky Conference.

Because of a fifth year of eligibility stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, Patterson played in a school- and league-record 160 career games. He started right away as a freshman and started, with few exceptions, for the rest of his career.

He scored 1,042 points. He played in the Big Sky Tournament semifinals each season and reached the league championship game four times, where he and the Bobcats won three titles. Along the way, he hit 277 3-pointers — the second-most in school history.

Patterson was at first a floor spacer on Sprinkle’s last three teams and then a designated offensive focal point of Matt Logie’s first two. He spent his entire career at one school, making him one of the rare players to not be tempted by the transfer portal.

“The loyalty that Tyler has exhibited to Montana State is certainly more and more unique in this day and age than ever before,” Logie said. “That is something that I think needs to be celebrated.”

A month after Patterson’s career ended, he considered what it was about Montana State that made him stay. Why didn’t he transfer? What couldn’t another program offer him?

“I’d say a home, really a community,” he said. “You go away to college, that first place is always going to be special.”

Patterson was never pressured to play basketball. But once he decided it was the sport for him, he had a good teacher to turn to.

Gary Patterson, his father, played at Utah State in the early 1990s and later was an assistant coach at San Jose State. (Among Gary’s own teachers of the game was Logie’s grandfather Ed Pepple, the winningest boys high school basketball coach in Washington history — primarily at Mercer Island, where Gary served as an assistant.)

Gary sought to make Tyler a great shooter, which meant “a ton of reps,” Tyler said.

The shots first started at a Gold’s Gym with his father and younger brother Quin. They continued at Mount Si High School in Snoqualmie, Washington, where both brothers became state champions. Once, on a family vacation to Hawaii, the Pattersons snuck into the gym where the Maui Invitational is held.

Three-point shooting is a craft that asks for a certain level of dedication, and Patterson has always been willing to oblige.

“It’s an ever-evolving process of learning and repetitions,” he said. “You’ve got to be super consistent at it. And that’s going to mean a lot of days where you’re missing out on activities with your friends growing up, but if you’re really about it, that’s what you love doing — the process of it.”

Three-point shooting is high-risk and high-reward. It is the most valuable shot in the game and only becoming more popular, but when the shots don’t go in, it can be demoralizing. Part of the process is finding ways out of those shooting slumps, Patterson said.

As a Bobcat, Patterson shot 37.95% from deep in his career. He finished on a high note, hitting a career-best 44% (66 of 150) in his final season — a figure that would have been eighth in the country if he’d had enough makes and attempts to qualify for the national list.

He shot 34.72% as a freshman and 34.48% in his third year, alternating those marks with 37.65% as a sophomore and 37.31% in his fourth year. Patterson experienced the highs and lows of outside shooting, but he always found his way through it.

“There’s no success without failure, especially in the world of shooting,” Patterson said, “and I think you really learn a lot about yourself because there were days when I was a freshman I was really struggling to shoot the ball.

“You just have to wake up the next day and look at yourself in the mirror and be like, ‘I’ve got to go figure this out on the court.’”

Patterson would often shoot late into the night at Worthington Arena after home games, a ball-return machine stationed underneath one of the hoops.

It’s that kind of work ethic that has made Patterson so successful, childhood friend and 2024-25 teammate Jabe Mullins said.

“He just doesn’t quit,” Mullins added. “He knows what he’s good at, and he just drills that.”

Mullins saw that in Patterson as they were growing up and as teammates at Mount Si. For Patterson’s other teammates over five years, they quickly picked up on his shooting ability.

Chika Nduka, a fellow Seattle-area native, sometimes played against Patterson’s teams when they were younger. Nduka spent his first two college seasons at the University of Portland before transferring and spending his final two years at MSU — where he saw Patterson’s work up close.

“To see his growth from when he was a little kid until now, it’s pretty special,” Nduka said.

Nduka specifically remembered playing MSU twice during the 2021-22 season. Patterson went scoreless in one of those meetings, but he hit four 3-pointers en route to 14 points in the second one.

“It was nice being on this side,” Nduka said with a laugh. “It wasn’t fun when we played against him because you know if you leave him open he’s probably going to make you pay.”

In Big Sky history, Patterson’s 277 3-pointers are sixth all-time. The fact that he played a fifth season skews that placement some, but if one considers only his last four seasons — which all had 33 or more games, as opposed to just 23 in the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season — his total of 252 3-pointers would still be 14th in Big Sky history and fourth all-time at MSU.

Over and over again, Patterson earned the trust to take those shots. Coaches and teammates often wanted him to be more aggressive to take advantage of his gifts.

Xavier Bishop, Patterson’s teammate from 2020-22 and an MSU assistant coach in 2024-25, has long been confident in Patterson’s shot.

“When T shoots the ball,” Bishop told the Chronicle in December 2021, “in my mind I’m getting back on defense because I know it’s going in.”

More recently, four-year teammate Sam Lecholat expressed his faith in Patterson this way: “I don’t care if it’s a bad shot. I love that he’s shooting it.”

Of Patterson’s 160 career games, he started 149 of them — including the first 17 of his freshman year.

That team — which featured Jubrile Belo inside, Bishop at point guard and slashing wings Amin Adamu and Abdul Mohamed — needed a true floor spacer.

“I was like, ‘I can fit into that role perfectly,’” Patterson said. “As a coach’s kid, you want to do the things that help the team win.”

When Patterson took the floor in his first game, on Nov. 25, 2020, at UNLV, he took a moment to savor his accomplishment of reaching the college level. He went on to shoot 3 for 3 from deep and finished with nine points in MSU’s win.

“I hit my first couple shots,” Patterson said, “and it was like, ‘This is really a dream come true.’”

In his second game, Patterson scored nine points at Pacific. In his third game, he scored 11 at home against Yellowstone Christian. He shot 9 of 10 on 3-pointers to open his career.

“It was cool to be thrown in the fire and have to adjust and figure things out on the fly,” Patterson said. “I think sometimes it’s the best way to learn — just to be thrown in and take the training wheels off and just go full throttle.”

Patterson ended up averaging 3.7 points per game that first year. The Bobcats reached the first of four consecutive Big Sky Conference Championship games and lost by 10 points to Eastern Washington. Patterson remembers the COVID restrictions of that season meant he and his teammates were together all the time, making them an even tighter group of friends.

“We had a ton of good times together,” he said. “Being close as a team is one of the best qualities you can have that indicates success.”

Patterson upped his scoring to seven points a game in his second season. He started the year hot again, reaching double digits in eight of the first 12 games — a stretch that included a 22-point outburst after hitting 6 of 7 from outside at Incarnate Word in November.

He cooled off some after that, scoring in double figures just four more times during the season, but he ended strong with 14 points (4 of 5 from deep) in the Big Sky title game against Northern Colorado on March 12, 2022.

It was after that game in Boise, Idaho, that Patterson reflected on his trust in Sprinkle’s vision for what the program could be — the one he believed in enough to make him commit to MSU in the first place.

“This is 100% what it was,” Patterson told the Chronicle on the court afterward. “We knew we were going to have the pieces, and we just had to put the work in. We put the work in, and now we’re here.”

A year later, on that same court, Patterson contributed a 3-pointer to MSU’s win over Northern Arizona in the championship game. He said afterward that the second title “feels 10 times sweeter.”

Sprinkle was hired away by Utah State not long after that second championship in 2023. Instead of entering the transfer portal at that time like several teammates, Patterson chose to stay and became a roving weapon in Logie’s offense.

“He had been an integral part of the Bobcat teams before I got here,” Logie said, “but in more of a complementary, floor-spacing role. And a lot of year one was trying to get him accustomed to our style of play and being more aggressive, really trying to maximize the shooting potential that he has.”

In Logie’s first season, he recognized how much the team could benefit from Patterson on the perimeter as point guards Robert Ford III and Eddie Turner III attacked the paint and forced the defense to rotate and collapse.

“When that ball finds Tyler, that’s about as good a shot as you’re ever going to get,” Logie said.

Patterson’s volume of shooting increased dramatically. He attempted (252) and made (102) more shots from the field than in any of his first three seasons. From the outside, his 72 3-pointers made and 193 attempted were also the most of his career. Patterson played a staggering 1,234 minutes, over 400 more than his previous high for one season, and increased his rebounds, assists and steals as a result. He averaged a career-best 8.2 points per game and scored in double digits a career-best 15 times.

“I was super grateful for that opportunity,” Patterson said. “I think that was probably one of the best things for me, that expansion in my role.”

The Bobcats struggled to win consistently in 2023-24, but they caught fire near the end of the season and capped the Big Sky Tournament with an 85-70 win over Montana for a third consecutive championship. Patterson contributed 12 points to that winning effort, hitting a memorable 3-pointer early in the team’s 41-9 run in the second half.

“To have that where it’s against your rival in a championship game is a super special moment,” he said.

Near the end of Patterson’s final season, he scored seven points in a road loss at Portland State. One of his 3-pointers in that game was ruled a long two, leaving him with 999 career points at the end of the evening.

Two nights later, he had the best game of his career: 8-of-12 shooting from deep, 9 of 13 overall for a career-high 26 points. The eight 3-pointers tied for the second-most in one game in program history.

“Coach told me before the game, ‘Be aggressive,’ and so that’s kind of all you need to hear as a shooter,” Patterson said. “My guys found me a lot, and I was on the receiving end of a lot of avalanches in that game.”

And in electrifying fashion, he eclipsed 1,000 career points — the 42nd Bobcat to reach that milestone — and passed Harald Frey (270) in career 3-pointers to take over second place.

“It’s super special,” Patterson said of surpassing 1,000 points. “I think my evolution as a player, just from being such a role player and having a specific role on the team into the last two years kind of expanding, it was really cool for me to get that achievement.”

Patterson is second at MSU in career 3-pointers to only Tyler Hall (2015-19), the all-time leading scorer in program and Big Sky history with 2,518 points. Hall reached that figure with the help of an astonishing 431 3-pointers on 1,077 attempts.

“His record’s off the charts,” Patterson said. “I couldn’t fathom how unconscious of a shooter and scorer you got to be to be able to even attempt those, let alone make that amount of threes.”

Hall’s records may never be touched, but Patterson has reached rarified air himself. He is surely one of MSU’s winningest players, contributing to a five-year stretch of unprecedented team success in Montana State and Big Sky history. His shooting numbers only strengthen his case as an all-time Bobcat.

“He had such a good career, and he’s super humble and such a great guy,” Mullins said. “It couldn’t happen to anyone better.”

MSU lost in the Big Sky semifinals this past season, ending the quest for a fourth consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament. It was “a rough ending,” Patterson said, before adding, “but to be able to accomplish the things that we did throughout the three years, I wouldn’t switch it for anything.”

Patterson is grateful that his five-year career overlapped with incredible team success elsewhere in the MSU athletic department. He picked MSU originally because he thought men’s basketball was going in “the right direction,” but it turns out everything else was also.

“All these sports are killing it and having their peaks,” Patterson said. “It’s really cool to do that at the same time everyone else in your university is doing it.”

A silver lining of not playing in March Madness was that Patterson — for the first time — got to have a normal spring break, which included seeing younger brother Quin’s UC San Diego team play in the NCAA Tournament. (Quin did not play in the three-point loss to Michigan. He will graduate this week and has announced plans to transfer to Idaho State, also in the Big Sky Conference.)

Patterson watched the game at Denver’s Ball Arena in awe of the environment around the tournament. He said he always tried to focus on the games when his Bobcats played against Texas Tech in San Diego in 2022, Kansas State in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 2023, and Grambling in Dayton, Ohio, in 2024. But once he was a fan himself, he thought more about seeing all of the media members and all the signage surrounding the tournament — the little details that went into making March Madness an event.

“To see it from the other side was super eye opening, honestly,” Patterson said, “and it just showed how special it was to be able to participate in three of them.”

Patterson graduated from MSU in spring 2024 with a degree in liberal studies, and he’s currently in an online summer class to finish a master’s degree in coaching. He’s not sure yet if he’ll explore the possibility of playing professionally overseas.

If his time as a basketball player is indeed over, he can rest easy knowing he had a career that featured a lot of wins, 3-pointers and friendships.

“It is special to kind of know that it might not get touched,” Patterson said of his 3-point mark, “but either way, it’s just the memories behind it that I’ll keep with me forever.”