After the final whistle had sounded on the 2022-23 season, a fantastic season for both the men’s and women’s basketball teams led into a potentially tumultuous offseason. The women’s side, coached by Cameron Hill, saw the departure of star post player and multirole threat Maggie Shipley and said goodbye to all-time three-point leader Ashlyn Milton. Over on the men’s side, under head coach Jimmy Smith, long-time team leader AJ Clark departed alongside all-around star Ben Hanley. With the four key graduations, there would need to be new faces leading their respective teams. Along with returning stars, the first-year class has taken this challenge in stride.
“As far as building a team, I think we’re really lucky that we have a really good group of dudes that are returning this year,” Coach Smith said. “Not a whole lot of egos, you know; everyone really just wants to be successful.”
Four members of the Class of 2027 — Jamie Ruede, Christian Green, Dean Balo and Ivory Scott — took the stage, making highlight reels and becoming key contributors from the start of the season. Each player has proven their specialties; Ruede and Balo can shoot from deep and send the gym into a frenzy, Green brings physicality and high-flying dunks, and Scott brings extra strength and ball skills to an already strong rotation.
“I knew that I would have an impact; I just didn’t know exactly what my role would be or how fast I would have an impact,” Green said. “I think just the trust from not just Coach Smith, but also my teammates, and everybody else around me just believing in me on what I can do and pushing me to be the best I can be has allowed me to just be myself and which has allowed me to be successful on the court.”
All four athletes were expected to have a day-one impact despite the challenges associated with recruiting at this level. Because of the restrictions in NCAA Division III, teams aren’t allowed to offer athletic scholarships, while Division I schools like Texas and UTSA are. Even though coaches want players capable of playing at a scholarship level, it can be difficult to bring such talent into the team without heavy challenges from larger schools with deeper pockets.
“When you’re asking people to pay tuition, recruiting is always a challenge,” Coach Hill said. “But in the end, if the players choose Trinity, I think that’s a big deal. It says a lot about what their expectations are for their career and what kind of environment they want to be in.”
While the coaches already understood what these players could bring to the table, their combined impact is impossible to ignore. Green currently leads Trinity in points per game despite shooting only eight 3-point attempts all season. Ruede has scored over 20 points in four games so far this season and is second on the team in 3-pointers behind only junior Josie Napoli. Balo, who has been a key member of the Tiger bench rotation (including two starts in place of injured senior Tanner Brown), has the most points per game of any non-starter and is fourth on the team in the category overall thanks to his outside shooting. Though Scott has seen limited playtime, she’s made a massive contribution to the team.
“I didn’t expect this amount of playing time so soon,” Ruede said. “It’s not stressful, though, because I feel like all the girls have done a really, really good job of making us feel like it’s okay to make a mistake. Like it doesn’t matter because basketball is basketball. Of course we want to win, but like it’s not the end of the world, and they love us no matter what.”
Along with contributing to wins on the court, the first-years have become friends off the court, working with each other not just to navigate playing together but adjusting to college life.
“You have your own time, and you have to be really smart about how you use it,” Scott said. “Outside of class and practice, you still have time to just be yourself, but you also have to use that time. Both of us were thrown into the wolf pack together, and it was like, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s my freshman buddy.’”
Both teams have had thrilling moments throughout the season for a number of reasons. A winter break trip to Vegas for an invitational tournament gave the Tigers an opportunity to prove themselves against national competition and was the highlight of the year for Balo.
“I think up until that point, we were a little underlooked and underrated, but I think we got the opportunity to showcase ourselves on a national level,” Balo said. “We had a good win versus Clark, who’s a very good team, and we were able to blow out Pomona, who was ranked higher than us at the time. It’s cool to have recognition, but we’re still focused on bigger things.”
Both teams are deep in SCAC conference play, with both squads setting their eyes on the conference tournament in late February. The men’s team (18-1) wrapped up a 4-game home stand with a 76-73 overtime victory against Texas Lutheran and holds a no. 10 national ranking. The women’s team (14-5) struggled over the Christmas break by dropping four of their six games but have since come back strong with blowout wins over St. Thomas, Centenary, Southwestern and TLU. Both teams return for their final home games of the season on Feb. 11 when they will play their final games in Calgaard against Colorado College.
