CHAPEL HILL – Seth Trimble is getting close to feeling like his old self again, he said following North Carolina’s 79-53 win over California on Wednesday night at the Smith Center.
Trimble missed three games recovering from a concussion and returned for the win last week at home over SMU, but he didn’t score. He had two layups in the win last weekend at NC State showing a few more signs of returning to form.
Wednesday against the Bears, Trimble may not have fully broken out, but he came close. The 6-foot-3 junior finished with 12 point, 6 rebounds, and 3 steals. And he was highly responsible for the Tar Heels shutting down Cal star wing Andrej Stojakovic, who ended the night with just 6 points, 14 below his season average.
We spoke with Trimble after the game about the process in finding his form post-concussion and a few others things. Here is the Q&A from that interview plus the video is below, too.
Q: You kind of look like you’re back to normal, playing like you were before the concussion.
TRIMBLE: “Absolutely. Today was a huge step in the right direction. I felt completely like myself. But I’m always nitpicking at myself, and one thing I’ve got to do again is get back going from three and give the team a boost from the 3-point line behind the arc. We’re getting there. Very close.”
Q: You haven’t hit any since you got back, right?
TRIMBLE: “No, no. I’ve only shot a few. But even before that, I was a little cold even before I got hurt. But the good thing about me this year is I’m always going to continue to take the right ones; the good ones. So, they’re going to end up falling.”
Q: You’re very hard on yourself self-critiquing yourself. You’ve been trying to get back into rhythm these last few games. What are some of the things you’ve been telling yourself mentally? You were very active as far as skills and rebounds, so what were you telling yourself going into this?
TRIMBLE: “Just do the little things. Continue to do the little things that I’ve been doing all year, and that’s when the big things are going to come. That’s when I’ll start putting up the numbers I want to put up again. That’s when I start getting the rebounds, start making threes again.
“So, just focus on the little things. Big (Sean) May was huge with that. He just constantly kept reminding me that just do the little things and continue to be that player I’ll be. And then eventually it’s going to build up and build up and I’ll get back to me.”
Q: They cut it to 48-39 when you guys went on a 15-0 run. You guys have not put teams away in that situation, so what occurred there to make it happen?
TRIMBLE: “HD (Hubert Davis) was looking for a few of us guys to get out and be that energy presence that we needed. So, J-Wash (Jalen Washington) was huge, Ven (Lubin) was huge, J-Wit (Jae’Lyn Withers) was huge. Elliot was huge all game, and I’ll give myself a little bit of credit… We just tried to get the stops we needed to get out in a good lead.”
Q: People were critical of you guys in the nonconference, so is it okay to give you credit now for four straight wins?
TRIMBLE: “Yeah, sure. But we don’t care at the end of the day. They can say what they want. We know we didn’t capitalize on some of the nonconference games. But we’re just focused on the next game. It’s a one-game mentality for us, so right now we’re focused on Stanford and trying to make a five-game winning streak.”
Q: Andrej Sojoakovic entered the game averaging 20.3 points but the Tar Heels held him to just 6 points. Trimble and freshman Drake Powell spent the most time on one of the ACC’s top players. How did they shut him down?
TRIMBLE: “Cal is (among the last teams) in assists. They’re up there in the 300s in assists in the entire nation. So, we know they’re not a team that runs all these sets to create looks for other guys. They’re a team that kind of plays their guys (strengths), and Stojakovic was their main guy. He’s an incredible player but we took the pride today.
“We switched on and off the ball, so everybody took some turns on him. The whole team took pride in guarding him.”
