Trinity schedule has come out.
Of their 14 non-conference games, 4/5 are against teams that made the NCAA last year. Babson, St Joes Maine, Yeshiva, Western Conn State, Westfield State depending if they meet up in a tournament at Trinity.
3 against above average St Joes CT, Western New England, Hartford (because of the coach)
3/4 definite cupcakes, Mass College of Liberal Arts, Gordon, Baruch, CCNY (will depend on Westfield/ccny game)
3 could be decent/average teams Eastern Conn, Oswego State, Worcester State.

I would say an average out of conference schedule (like the past 3 years), Babson and W Conn State on the road, other top teams they play at home.

Wish Trinity would play a tougher schedule, get out of N.E. like other NESCAC teams do.

Previous class lost 1 game before Xmas in 4 years (53-3, overall non conference, 2 losses their freshman year), present senior class hasn't lost a game before Xmas (41-1 overall non conference). Not counting NCAA games. Impressive but again average out of conference schedule.

Quote from: NYHoopsGuru on September 10, 2026, 11:45:08 PMGiven how weak this NESCAC senior class is and the potential keys to the offense, is Jared Berry a realistic POTY candidate?

- Guru

I think he should be, especially since the biggest barometer seems to be scoring. Trinity in its starting lineup will have 1 proven scorer and that is Berry. Ayles, Norris and Davis could all step up and will need to do so, but Berry could average close to or more than 20 points per game. Now most teams will know this and that could hurt Berry as he may be doubled team and his height could hurt him. But he plays much bigger than his height and has no fear against bigs. He also moves without the ball very well and takes it to the basket as well as anyone in the league, so he could get mores chances at the line. And unlike this year he won't lose votes to a teammate. He is going to play 10+ more minutes per game than he has ever played and probably is going to get more shots per game than anyone on a trinity team has taken in the past 4 years.
I think Pouye is the favorite, if he stays healthy he can just dominate/affect the game in many ways.

Alex is a tremendous person, anyone that has met him will tell you that. As Spring said Alex and others hurt very much by Covid and Alex with injuries. The game I remember most was his senior year at Williams, championship game against Trinity. Alex had 18 points (I think his career high at Williams) 6-8 from three and was the player that kept Williams in the game in the 2nd half.

Quote from: NYHoopsGuru on August 19, 2026, 03:51:18 PMD3BBall-

Correct, his 6'10 listing is definitely overstated, but that's not to say he doesn't play well above the rim. For example, Davis is listed at 6'6, but really more like 6'5. A great example of someone who is not as tall as listed but still plays above the rim. Though Dash's outside shooting isn't that of Norris, his offensive game is already far more developed than Davis. Needless to say, that trio of bigs would give NESCAC frontcourts some real problems from many different angles. I don't believe Holmes and Freisthler will be much of a threat regardless, simply because they are too slow or not skilled enough. 

Spring-

Being 6'8, or whatever he is, there is such a thing as being a late bloomer (especially in the low D1 / high D3 world). Over the course of the summer, Dash has played alongside many division 1 level players (including big men) and out played them. He has played in NYvsNY (NYC tournament full of high major D1 players) and even won game MVP. Many of the other NESCAC rookies from the area didn't even get invited, and even less so would they win player of the game. Regardless, this is all hypothetical, so we will see how this all plays out.

-Guru

Either Holmes or Freisthler are going to play, maybe both now that Mabilon is not coming in. They don't have any other bigs, and with the exception of Sonkoua, not sure any of the new players can defend at the 5. And remember T Davis barely played as a freshman, so there is just no guarantee. And IMO Freisthler is a better outside shooter than Norris, with Norris the more athletic, stronger and better defensive player. Holmes reminds me a lot of T Davis, maybe not on the same talent level, either of these 2 would have played meaningful minutes on most of the NESCAC teams last year.

I agree with Spring, we all have a tendency to over value players. 2 years ago, some thought Will Davis was going to play as a freshman, he barely played meaningful minutes and left the team after thanksgiving. He now plays at D2 AIC and played ok this year. That being said Trinity won the NCAA without him and losing another big at the same time. So not sure it would have been automatic that Mabilon cracked the lineup this upcoming year, and if he did, agree with Spring, most likely a 10–15-minute player a game.

Quote from: nescac1 on August 19, 2026, 04:38:27 PMFor all the talk of who isn't showing up to Trinity, I'm more curious about who is ... of the five well-regarded wings Trinity is bringing in, who is expected to make the biggest impact?  What other NESCAC FYs are worth keep in an eye on? 

My guess is that it is pretty wide open. First Cosgrove doesn't usually play a lot of freshmen. He played 4 four years ago. Vetter, Okorougo and McDonald all played a lot, Lazarre played some but there were just too many guards in front of him. The year before 21-22 season he played Dorion and McEachern with Dorion a starter. While Dorion was considered a freshman, he lost a year between his senior year of high and the 21-22 season, if no Covid he would have been a sophomore. 3 Years ago, only Berry played, Davis (who some thought would be in running for ROY) played very little meaningful minutes, although he was fantastic against Calvin in the elite game, but he played in that game because Okpoebo was injured. 2 years ago, Ayles was the only freshman to play, this past year no freshman played.
Trinity has 4 players that will be sophomores or juniors in Closeil, Holmes, Steward and Freisthler that have a shot at 1 of those 5 positions available. 0f the 7 freshmen/transfer coming in, I would say that Spinoso, Brown, Sonkoua, O'Leary and Jones have the best chance to play a lot, Introzzi and Echevarria may have to wait a year.
But as someone said, my guess is that not all stick around. In the last 3-5 years, 7-8 players have left the team or transferred, just like many teams.
Cosgrove will play more than 10 during the non-conference and see who he thinks can play in the conference games. My picks on the freshmen/transfer are Sonkoua, Spinos and Brown will play along with either Holmes or Freisthler in 4 of the open spots, with 1 other spot up for grabs. And by conference play I think there is a chance that a freshman starts which hasn't happened in a while, Okorougo and McDonald are the last freshmen to start any games for Cosgrove, but this year it could happen again.

Quote from: stlawus on August 18, 2026, 10:25:02 PM

Quote from: NYHoopsGuru on August 18, 2026, 09:41:04 PM

Quote from: D3BBALL on August 18, 2026, 05:25:51 PMIncoming freshman from Canterbury that was going to Trinity now going to URI. Losing a 6 10 athletic big never good,  but more of a hurt down the road than this year.

D3BBALL-

In what is supposed to be a stacked Trinity freshman class touted to replace the legendary '26 class, I thought Dash Mabilon had the most potential and was certainly going to be my preseason pick for ROY and even possibly an all conference team. Clearly Coach Archie Miller and staff at Rhode Island see a lot of potential taking a freshman this late in the offseason, after a whole summer of practices. That conversation with Coach Cosgrove could not have been an easy one, but only time will tell if the bantams will be able to make up for this loss and continue the winning pedigree that we are all so used to by now.

-Guru

Everyone was courting him, he most definitely would have made an instant impact in my opinion. UAA, NESCACs, several Liberty League teams and plenty of d1's were after him. He's not actually 6'10", but he's still all of 6'8". He has lots of range though and is very good beyond the arc. I wasn't surprised he chose Trinity given that he'd probably get immediate playing time with his skill set being unicorn like for d3.  Probably going to see fewer and fewer of these players go d3 now (if they don't have the academics for schools like Tufts/Williams/Amherst). 

He could quite have been the roy or a big part of the team or maybe a part time player or just garbage time, we will never know. But at 6'8 or bigger means he was going to play the 4 or 5 imo, and they have Davis and Norris and then they have Holmes and Freisthler, who I believe both would have played last year for pretty much every other NESCAC team except tufts, maybe not a ton of minutes but played some meaningful minutes. I have not watched him a lot and just not sure he can play the 3, sounds like you have seen him shoot beyond the arc. I have heard mixed thoughts on his 3 point shooting and even his high lights from this past season has limited 3 point shots. And with Coz he better had wanted to play defense and play it hard. It's surprising that he didn't choose a D1 team earlier. Might just be a sleeper who ends being a steal for uri. Trinity's biggest need this year are wings that can score, that being said maybe he would ended up starting for them.

Incoming freshman from Canterbury that was going to Trinity now going to URI. Losing a 6 10 athletic big never good,  but more of a hurt down the road than this year.

I agree, not sure either transfer into Colby is going to make a huge difference. They both seem to be adding some depth.
Will be very interesting to see how this conference handles transfers going forward. Conn tried it for a couple years, didn't really help. Trinity has brought one in every year the last three years. Two years ago Paul Jordan played with the second unit as a junior, but wasn't in the top 10 as a senior. That move seems baffling to me as that second unit really needed another scorer this past year. The transfer from Rutgers last year barely played even before he got injured. He has a lot of potential. This year they bring the transfer in from D2, but it's not like he lit it up on that team. So far hasn't been a huge help for Trinity, and yes they had a ton of talent already.
Has there been many transfers in the league the last 3 to 5 years that have been a dominating player?
I think at the D3 level it's tougher to make it work like NYU has the last few years. Babson has brought in a number of transfers the last two or three years don't think it really helped them. This past year the team was mostly just recruits and they came 10 minutes away from beating Trinity in the second round.
Even at the D1 level, it looks great when teams are elite and playing well with transfers, but there are so many more teams that bring in transfers and the teams are not great. University of Chicago had a great run this year but they had to bring in two elite D3 players to get there. That's not easy to do every year.
To think you can bring in two or three transfers and are going to be an elite team just don't see it happening that often. In the end just look at Wesleyan, Tufts and Trinity the last three years.

They may have the best freshman class in the NESCAC, at least on paper. Maybe similar to four years ago when Vetter, Okorougo, and McDonald all played a lot of minutes, 2-4 of these transfer/freshman are going to play a lot of minutes. With 8 transfer/freshman coming in and at least 4 sophomore/juniors battling for minutes that will be 12 players for 5 spots if Cosgrove plays his normal 10 players. And they only lose 2 seniors next year although 2 very good players. Good problem to have that many good players, but it also can cause problems with players not happy about playing time as it happened on the team 4 years ago.

Quote from: nescac1 on June 28, 2026, 10:38:44 AMI'm definitely a fan of Mason Dawkins' game - the only real fear for Bowdoin is if he improves his skills (especially shooting) rapidly, he's the most obvious D1 level athlete in the league. 

With only four (at most) of 14 all-league guys returning, there are gonna be a ton of new faces leading the conference next year, Dawkins among them.  My guess for guys most likely to make a leap to an all-conference team next year:

1. KJ Neville
2. Jackson Rein
3. Mason Dawkins
4. Jared Berry
5. Ben Lyttle
6. Ricardo Nieves
7. Jon Medley
8. Jamari Robinson
9. Dominic Ducree
10. Greg Cantwell

Other guys to watch: Jalen Reese, Aidan Yates, Matthew Rideout, Sean O'Leary, Theo Pow, Ian Murray, Oscar Edelman, Jackson Bleecker

I would add Tristan Davis to your list as well. He is going to get more minutes and most likely more touches, could average a double double and be in the running for defensive player of the year.

It's definitely going to be an interesting season. So many questions for so many teams.

Quote from: nescac1 on May 27, 2026, 11:16:33 AMThis may be the other Trinity recruit D3bball mentioned, but they added ANOTHER high level recruit to a loaded recruiting class, Trey Jones from New Hampton, who NERR lists at number 10 in New Hampshire.  I imagine we will see several of Trinity's three highly regarding incoming wings stepping into major roles right away.  This was the year that Trinity really reaped the benefits of the national title in terms of recruiting.  NERR also updated its rankings a bit which I'll edit in the prior recruiting master list.  Trinity's group seems super, super stacked. 

One other Trinity note, as loaded as the graduating class was, one other original highly-regarded recruit in that class, Dane Moran, who didn't see major minutes at Trinity, landed at Dickinson and was first-team all Centennial Conference this year.  Crazy. 

Yes this is there final recruit. They lose 6, bringing in 8. Lots of competition for 5-6 spots.

My opinion, but I think a freshman may start. They need another scorer on that first unit. And I can see 2-4 freshman as part of the 6-10 rotation. Although I think that rotation might be closer to 6-12 or even 13 until they get to conference play.
It will just be a complete different look. The entire 2nd 5 could be different. At most only 1 returner from that unit.
Norris I agree likely to start with first unit.

Quote from: Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan) on May 18, 2026, 01:55:50 PM

Quote from: Stickthe3 on May 18, 2026, 12:20:56 PMWow, that's big news about Ippolito.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the current climate of college basketball, but that's a tough loss for Trinity.

On an unrelated note, Bentley HC Jay Lawson just announced his retirement.  It's probably too late for Nolan Ames to make any changes at this point, but got to feel for the kid as he initially committed to Colby, only to decommit after their coaching change, and now the coach he was planning on playing for is retiring (assuming he did not know about Lawson's plans).

I think that Bentley timing is weird.  Very late to make that announcement.  I'm watching this in conjunction with the rumors that more of the NE10 are exploring d3.  If (and I have no reporting on this at all) a school makes the decision to go that direction, it's often during this time of year.

Agree, St A's is the first domino and most likely more to follow. Issue will be what D3 conferences are going to take them in. Bentley should have no issue but not sure the rest of D2, at least in the northeast, will find it easy to just get in any conference they want.

Quote from: nescac1 on May 17, 2026, 06:59:44 PMPaul Ippolito transfers from Trinity to Redlands.  He was a steady back-up point guard for the Bantams, who now lose half of their ten-man rotation.  I expect we will see big minutes early from some of the heralded new arrivals next season.

For Trinity this fall may be like it was 4 years when they brought in 7 Freshman and 3 (Vetter, Okorougo and McDonald) average about 60 minutes/game. And there was no 5 in 5 out that year. Last 3 years only 2 freshman played significant minutes, Berry and Ayles, none this year.
5 spots to fill, but from reserves that didn't play this year, 4 will have an opportunity and I see at least 2 freshman that will play a lot. Hearing rumors that they have another potential that would be really good as well.