After a relatively quiet start to the offseason, the Tar Heels lost a significant piece of their 2023-24 roster to the portal on Tuesday.
As first reported by Inside Carolina, sophomore guard Seth Trimble has entered his name into the transfer portal as of earlier this afternoon. Trimble, who is the brother of former Tar Heel forward J.P. Tokoto, will have two years of eligibility remaining wherever he ends up.
Trimble spent this season as the Tar Heels primary option off the bench after holding a solid rotational role as a freshman. He averaged 9.8 minutes per game in the 32 that he played in a year ago and that number nearly doubled this year when he averaged 17.1 minutes per game in 35 games played. He averaged 5.2 points per game and 2.1 rebounds per game this year after quickly growing into the most trusted player off the bench for the team early in the season. He shot the ball well in all aspects, hitting 47.0% of his shots overall, 41.9% from three and 66.7% at the foul line, but lacked confidence to shoot the ball at times, especially from the outside. More important than what he did on the offensive end was what brought defensively. Trimble was the team's best perimeter defender this season, helping to slow down multiple team's top scorers at the guard position throughout the year. He will leave some tough shoes to fill this offseason on both ends of the floor.
While some are hoping that this signifies the return of RJ Davis, there are a number of different things that could be factoring into this. Davis’ return could certainly be a reason for this move, but this may have even more to do with 5-star guard Ian Jackson joining the team this offseason. Another factor that may have led to this move was the way that he was handled in the second half of the team’s Sweet 16 loss to Alabama where Paxson Wojcik, who had played sparingly for most of the season, got the nod over him despite his eight first half points.
Trimble is the second Tar Heel to enter the transfer portal, joining forward James Okonkwo, who did so Friday.
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