Quote from: KnightSlappy on Yesterday at 05:48:13 PMPer Ryan Whitnable, Jon VanderWal will leave Marietta to take the Trine job.

VanderWal is a West Michigan native and played his college ball at Albion.

https://x.com/OACBBallShow/status/1917333656126816709?s=19

That's a really good coach that Trine is getting.  I know he's had tons of success at Marietta, getting into the NCAA tournament 9 of his 16 seasons with the Pioneers, including a final 4 berth in 2022.  Curious as to why he would be leaving a great program like Marietta, other than to get back closer to home and compete in the MIAA.

Interesting fun fact, Trine and Marietta will be playing against each other in the Great Lakes Invitational this coming November.

So does anyone have the 'scoop' on Trine's new coach?  I can't find any annoucements.  If someone has a name but not confirmed, I'll take a private message if you don't want to post here.

Trine commitment:

Landon Lybarger, 6-1 G, Heritage HS, Monroeville IN

Quote from: Flying Dutch Fan on April 17, 2025, 12:02:44 PMReally interesting timing on this one (which was shared on X around 5pm yesterday): 

Paxton Crane 6-7 F Ft Wayne Carroll (IN) will attend Trine

I was pretty certain that Paxton was committing to Trine since this past winter (I have a nephew that teaches at Carroll), but he never made it public until yesterday.  Honestly I'm kinda shocked he made his announcement before a new coach was in place, and figured with Brooks leaving he'd open up his recruitment, so some good news for the Thunder.  He was MVP in the competitive Summit Athletic Conference in Ft Wayne, which has a few D1 commits.  Averaged 17 pts, 10 reb, shot almost 70% from the floor, honorable-mention all state.  He should help right away. 

It will be interesting to see if Trine promotes one of it's assistant coaches to the HC position or whether they do a national search.  I'm predicting they'll bring in a new coach from outside the ranks.  Current assistants are John Wysong, Ed Bentley, Isaac Anderson and Garrett Duffin.  Wysong and Bentley probably won't be candidates as they are getting close to retirement and more than likely won't be interested.  Anderson and Duffin are both young, in their late 20's, but with not much experience, both have coached the Trine JV, Anderson last year and Duffin this year.  Will one of them be interested in the position, maybe..., but I think the Trine program is in a spot where they can easily attract a coaching candidate with a lot more experience.

Trine University has a lot of 'pros' to this position.  It's a growing campus with great academics and the facilites are top notch, there is always new or remodeled construction on campus or on their satellite campusus every year,  But the biggest con is recruiting, northeastern Indiana is a tough sell to recuits coming out of high school to come to Trine.  The NAIA is king here, Coach Miller was consistently losing battles to programs like Saint Francis, Huntington, Goshen, Grace, Taylor, Indiana Tech, Bethel, Indiana Wesleyan, etc, on kids who would be a good fit to his program.  That is why you saw an increase in transfers coming to the program over the last 8-10 years or so, to help fill out the varsity rosters.  Trine had better luck recruiting Ohio and Michigan kids, Miller's rosters were almost evenly divided between Indiana, Ohio and Michigan players.  Starting from scratch isn't going to be easy for the new staff.  Most of this year's high school seniors have already made their college choices, so getting someone hired fairly quickly is paramount.     

I am not shocked by this announcement.  Very happy for Coach Miller, he'll do well in his new position at CMU, he's in his prime coaching age, lots of HC experience, so now was the best time to move on when the right opportunity presented itself.  He put Trine MBB on the national map, culminating  with winning it all in 2024.  Now there is some clarity in the Nate Tucker portal news.  It's possible there will be more portal announcements.  Trine is in the same boat as Indiana...will be a whole new roster for the most part...albeit without all that NIL money.

With Nate Tucker now entering the portal, here is an update for Trine (yikes!):
   
Team     Minutes    Points    Rebounds      Assists    Steals    
Trine     0.21   0.179   0.197    0.158   0.185   


Trine MBB in 2025-26 will basically be starting from scratch.  The only player with any significant playing time returning is Jayce Cusack.  3 others saw some time with the second string on occasion: Logan McKenzie, Logan Gard and Cade Brenner.  Last year's squad was mostly all upperclassmen.  So it stands to reason this next season was going to have a lot of new faces.  The Tucker portal announcement was awful news, but maybe he saw the writing on the wall and wanted to go to a stronger program or maybe up a level.  Who knows.  We'll just play with what we got.  I do know we've had strong JV squads the last 2 years so this may be a chance for some to earn time on the Varsity.  I'm hoping Coach Miller can pull in a few upperclass transfers.  If not we will easily be the most inexperienced team in the MIAA next year.

Trine commit:

Montell Johnson, 6'3 G, Indianapolis Park Tudor HS

Trine Senior Drew Moore has entered the portal with one more year of eligibilty left.  I wouldn't be surprised he plays up a level or two.

Congratulations to Trine's Sidney Wagner for being selected to play in the WBCA All-Star game preceding the NCAA DIII Women's National Championship game.  I believe Sidney is the second Trine WBB athlete to be selected, alum Brandi Dawson was also selected following her stellar career at Trine.  Congratulations Sidney, well deserved!

Calvin wins the MIAA championship over Trine 70-57.  The Knights were very good, clearly the best team this weekend.  Hannah Sall was a force inside both offensively and defensively with her rebounding and shot blocking, and Fernandez and Larue were draining 3s from outside.  Fernandez makes this team go, she can get to the rim as well.  MIAA WBB as a whole is improving which is good for the league.  I don't foresee it as a Hope/Trine 'twosome' that had been commonplace for the last 8-9 years or so.  Congratulations Calvin, well deserved. 

With 4 steals in last night's game against Kalamazoo, Aidan Smylie has now become the all time steals leader in program history with 188 in his career.  He may not make all-conference because he doesn't score that much at 7 ppg, but is second on the team in rebounds, first in assists, first in steals, second in blocks, and if there were a stat for this, first in floorburns diving for loose balls.  He does so much to help this team compete at a high level.  He knows his role so well, one of the hardest competitors I've seen at Trine, ever!     

Trine 89 Olivet 55.

Senior day victory for the Thunder.  Olivet came out on fire and led 30-22 before Trine went on a 15-2 run to lead 37-32 going in to the locker room at the break.  Second half was all Trine as the Thunder found better footing on defense turning the Coments over at a high rate which led to easy buckets and open 3's.  Trine ends the game on a 67 to 25 run.  Manny punctuated the end of his time on the court with a bank-in 3 which brought down the house.

8 seniors honored before the game: Cam Awls, who got the start and played very well with 4 pts and 5 asst, Drew Moore 24 pts, Aidan Smylie 12 pts 9 reb, Emmanuel Megnanglo 9 pts 4 blocks, Grant Pahl 2 pts, Cam Smith 6 pts, Max Greenamoyer 1 pt, and Trevor Montiel 1 reb.  Heart wrenching honor of Fred Garland as the Garland family participated in senior day.  Lots of tears.

Trine 92 Adrian 65.

Really great defense by the Thunder in the first half, limiting the Bulldogs to 19 points on 23% shooting.  Second half both teams played even as Trine didn't have the same defensive mindset, it's hard to maintain that intensity with a big lead.  Balanced scoring with Tucker leading the Thunder with 22 points.  He's having a tremendous year, should easily be first team MIAA.  Love seeing his confidence grow, his mid range game is really good, most guys these days don't shoot the 10-15 foot jump shot, which is where Tucker thrives.  Megnanglo, Smith and Cusack also in double figures.  Moore in street clothes on the bench in a boot.  He was injured in the last 5 minutes of the Calvin game but continued to play.  I'm guessing today was just a 'rest day', but don't know for certain if it's more serious or not.

This crazy conference schedule now works against Trine, 5 of the last 6 games on the road beginning at Hope on Wednesday and ending at Calvin on Feb 22.  Calvin won today, so my guess is that they win out leading up to the game against Trine.  Trine would have to win all 6 to get home court advantage in the MIAA tournament.  That will be a tall task.

Quote from: oldknight on January 30, 2025, 12:24:04 AM

Quote from: TUAngola on January 29, 2025, 09:49:11 PMCalvin tops Trine 62-58 in a physical, defensive slugfest.  Calvin's defense was stellar, they play tight man to man just like Trine.  I don't think Trine played badly, they just had a tough time generating any consistent offense, but again that was due mostly to Calvin's defense.  Uchenna was up to the task guarding Drew, it was tough for Drew to get many shots up.  The big key to the win was Uchenna offensively was agressive, I've watched him play for 4+ years now and this is the most he has looked for his shot against us, he was their go-to guy.  Trevin was big for the Knights too, he had a great first half.

Good game analysis. I will just add a few thoughts. This was the most intense basketball game I have attended in many years, raising my blood pressure a notch throughout its course. Calvin's win at Hope last week was pretty intense too, but this tilt against Trine exceeded the Rivalry game I believe. As good as Calvin defense is and was, I think Trine's was every bit as good if not better, forcing 20 Calvin turnovers to keep the Thunder in it. In the end, Egekeze was the difference maker, coming up with a spectacular game of 23 points and 5 steals. No one has ever considered Uchenna to be much of a threat from the arc, but he hit 3 of 4 triple attempts and his corner 3 ball with the game tied at 56 proved to be the difference maker. Ressler struggled a lot tonight, but with the shot clock winding down the final 30 seconds, and the Knights up one, Luka arced in a short but difficult fadeaway over Megnanglo to put the home team in a tough spot. I thought Nate Tucker was excellent for Trine, scoring 16 and grabbing 7 boards. Just a great game. I might not sleep tonight.

Yes, you knew it was Uchenna's night on that 3 ball from the corner.  From my angle I thought there is no way that's going in as it was pretty much a 'line drive' shot, very little arc to it, but it went in.  And Luka's  shot was amazing too.  I didn't like that Trine didn't look for a quick 2 pointer after the time out, that's what I would have done, and then either get a trap/turnover on the inbounds pass or foul and make Calvin hit free throws.  Calvin defended the 3 point line great all night and certainly on the last Trine possession did not give anyone a good look as Drew had to force an off balance shot that had no chance.