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'You have to be mindful': Inside UNC Basketball's Seth Trimble's challenging mental strides and rise to greatness

  • Writer: LilK C
    LilK C
  • Jul 3, 2024
  • 3 min read

Seth Trimble, a 6-foot-3 guard from the small town of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, began his journey to basketball stardom at a young age. Scoring over 2,000 points in high school and achieving the status of “Wisconsin 2022 Gatorade Player of the Year,” he was definitely, most certainly, going to play an enormous role wherever he would decide to commit. 


But it couldn’t be that easy, could it? 


Well, in the end, it turned out to be not as straightforward as spectators, and probably Trimble himself, would have imagined, as great glory and great success are often not achieved without great roadblocks.


Coming into his freshman year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he previously committed to in June of 2021, the media believed he would carry the same responsibility and power that he did in high school. He would be the guy. And, being the No. 54 overall recruit in the country and the younger brother of former New York Knicks forward J.P. Tokoto, people began to form opinions. 


“North Carolina has always given the keys to the car to point guards and enabled them to succeed at the highest level,” The Athletic stated in a 2022 feature on Trimble before his freshman season. “Trimble does most of the things well that the best Tar Heel lead guards historically have.”


Fast forward to the 2022-23 season, his freshman year – despite playing in all 33 games, he averaged 1.8 points and 0.6 assists while playing an average of 9.8 minutes per game. So, yeah, you could say that he did not live up to the hype and first-year expectations that fans anticipated him to meet.


“My freshman year was definitely the lowest point I had,” he said. “I went on a two game, three game starting streak, then to not playing right after that, like playing four, five minutes a game. That [had] never happened before.”


As the season progressed and eventually ended with a stunning overtime loss to Alabama in the Sweet Sixteen, it was evident that Trimble had clear setbacks to overcome before the beginning of the 2023-24 season. 


The burning question, however, was why? Why is all of a sudden, Seth Trimble, the previous star athlete who was feared for his ball handling skills and unshakeable defense, so vulnerable? 


His answer was simple – mentality


“It definitely affects you when you first get here because everybody was a dominant player [in high school],” he explained. “Now you have to go from being that guy to being a 17-year-old on a team with 23-year-olds, who have been in that position of dominance for the last three years.”


Now, as a rising junior who will turn 20 in August, Trimble looks to assume a greater, more veteran role on the team. With players such as Harrison Ingram and Armando Bacot leaving to declare for the draft, who were valued by Tar Heel nation and so integral to the team’s success, Trimble noted his shift in mentality, crediting the people he surrounds himself with.


“I talk to my brother [J.P.] every single day,” said Trimble. “I’ve been able to learn so much from my brother and I’ve gotten to learn what to do. He’s been my best friend since as long as I can remember.”


While continuing to be constantly active in the gym, he also engaged himself in several pieces of literature, which helped him regain his confidence and view the world of sports from a new perspective in the long run.


In addition to Mamba Mentality by Kobe Bryant, he also enjoyed The Inner Game of Tennis, which helps athletes “overcome self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses in concentration to achieve peak performance,” according to its description


While Trimble acknowledged the aid of these material objects throughout his mental reconstruction process, he explained his spiritual reconnection with God and the restoration of his faith, and how that alone got him through times of despair that handheld items never could. 


And, averaging 5.2 points in 17.1 minutes per game his sophomore season, his process had obviously worked.


“I was able to reconnect myself with my faith with God,” he shared. “I started going to church with my teammates so much more often, and it really led the way for me.”


Able to block off the media and doubters, Trimble ultimately realized that the end of his collegiate career at Carolina, and likely the end of his professional career in the NBA, would be out of his control. If Trimble can continue to root himself in the process while focusing on his faith and basketball skills, we can expect to witness the breakout of a modern-day Marcus Paige in the coming years.


“I took all the stress, all the anxiety, all the worries – I stopped worrying about it,” he said. “I put it in God’s hands.”


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