Seth Trimble's Return Boosts UNC Vs. Buckeyes

ATLANTA — Seth Trimble spent the entirety of North Carolina’s pregame warmup session inside State Farm Arena with his UNC zip-up jacket on, with white wrapping around his left hand.

He received a loud ovation from the attending UNC fans in Atlanta during the starting lineup intros, and by that point, he had removed his jacket and revealed the padded white sleeve on his forearm. Trimble broke his arm after the team’s second game of the season on Nov. 7, but steadily made progress to get back out on the court. The sleeve was a precaution for Trimble in his first game back, but the new addition certainly didn’t get in his way.

Trimble picked up right where he left off on Saturday, scoring 17 points in 36 minutes for the Tar Heels in a 71-70 victory against Ohio State. The senior guard said he felt he was ready to go a few days before Saturday’s game, 

“Practicing, I felt pretty normal, but I knew the game is obviously different than practice, so I expected myself to be a little more winded than I was today, but I, surprisingly, was not,” Trimble said on Saturday. “I think I had a couple of segments where I was pretty gassed, but I feel like I’m able to soak in some energy at the right time.”

That energy gave the Tar Heels a boost in Saturday’s win, both offensively and defensively.

What benefited UNC’s offense was the ease with which Trimble was able to score. Of his six made baskets, two were fastbreak layups where he ran right past the defense and caught passes in stride on his way to the rim. Two others were catch-and-shoot 3-pointers, one was a pull-up 3-pointer off a Henri Veesaar screen and his final shot was the late driving layup that cut the Ohio State lead to one.

UNC pushed the pace more often with Trimble on the court, opening up the transition game and finishing with 10 fastbreak points. 

“He runs faster,” Hubert Davis said when speaking on Trimble’s impact on UNC’s transition game. “He does. Just the way that he gets out on the break. He can get a defensive stop, he can get a rebound, and within three or four steps, he’s across halfcourt, and he’s gone. Just having one person pulls everybody along, and then when they see Seth get those pitch-ahead layups, everybody wants to score. So then they start running. It’s contagious, and it’s nice to see that back in our offense today.”

The inclusion of Trimble in the lineup helped UNC mix things up with its lineups, allowing the team to get switches at all five positions when needed. The team paired Jarin Stevenson and Caleb Wilson in the post more often on Saturday when Henri Veesaar was on the bench, and Trimble’s return also gave the team an additional perimeter defender. 

The 6-foot-3 Trimble helped UNC in its efforts against Bruce Thornton — Ohio State’s leading scorer who entered Saturday averaging 21.8 points per game on 60% shooting. Thornton finished with 16 points on 7-16 shooting, and Trimble face-guarded him on the final play of the game to prevent him from getting the ball.

“There was really only one guy on our team that had any chance of getting a stop on Bruce Thornton,” Davis said. “That was Seth. And so having him in the lineup is huge.”

Trimble knocked down shots from three as well. He shot 0-7 from behind the arc in his first two games, but he made three triples in the second half to help create separation for UNC before Ohio State’s late push. He said he worked with Marcus Paige to adjust his jumpshot before returning to the court.

“I saw that my left hand was really far in front of the ball, and it altered my ball path a little bit,” Trimble said. “So while I was out, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to get my left hand more on the side of the ball, and it just comes out more fluid now and I have more confidence with it.”
 
Trimble’s no stranger to returning from injuries. Concussions kept him sidelined in the past, causing him to miss a few games as a sophomore and as a junior. But even combining those two stints, he never missed the amount of time that this arm injury forced him to miss.

Trimble described his road back to the court as “stressful,” not knowing when he’d be cleared and able to return to the court. But he made the necessary strides to get back on the court and thanked Paige, Jonas Sahratian and Doug Halverson for helping him get back out there.

Knowing how previous injuries slowed him down upon his initial returns, Trimble made it a point to take the court as his usual self on Saturday.

“Coming back from injury the last two years, it’s taken me a long time to knock off some rust,” Trimble said. “So I wanted to really make sure coming back from this injury, I did the precautions. I did everything necessary to be me when I get back. And I definitely did. Two different injuries. It’s much harder, I feel like, to come back from a concussion than it is with a broken arm mentally. But I was super sharp with it.”

Trimble successfully drew an offensive foul on Ohio State’s Christoph Tilly in the second half, and he emphatically slammed his right hand on the court three times before getting up. That level of energy helped guide North Carolina in its neutral-site victory in Atlanta.

UNC closes non-conference play on Monday against East Carolina before embarking on its ACC schedule. When it does get into conference play, the team looks to be complete with its senior leader back in the fold.

“Having him there is such a big presence,” Veesaar said. “On the guards (defensively), we barely have to do anything as bigs on ball screens. He fights through, he’s so handsy and makes those plays. On offense, we had so many more transition points just because of him running, like fastbreak points and layups.”