Call it the Seth Trimble game.
There were 10.6 seconds left on the clock, the game tied at 68, thanks to an epic UNC comeback in the waning minutes. The senior guard ran from one side of the court to the other, taking position in front of his own bench, as an outlet for a play that was supposed to get a big man a shot.
He was completely and utterly alone.
A list of all the people closer to Seth Trimble than any Duke defender would include the entire Carolina bench, the managers behind the bench, a large number of the photographers kneeling on the baseline, about to get the shot of a lifetime, when Trimble gets his.
“Not well,” said Duke coach Jon Scheyer when asked about how the Blue Devils defended that play. “We had a breakdown on the switch, and we just collapsed.”
Caleb Wilson is closer to Trimble than any Duke player as well. The freshman runs just to the right of the lane, signaling for fellow freshman Derek Dixon to throw him a lob. He’s one of the main options on the play. He’s also the only person in a uniform on the same side of the basket as Trimble.
Caleb Foster had originally been defending Trimble, following him halfway across the court. He actually got both feet out of the paint and onto that side of the floor, before the veteran guard sniffed out the play and realized it was going to be a shot at the rim. He doubled back and met Dixon’s drive to the hoop, cutting off the Tar Heel’s path.
In Foster’s defense, if he hadn’t, this would have been the Derek Dixon game. Dixon began outside the three-point line, beat the much larger Cameron Boozer, defending him after a switch, then split Maliq Brown and Isaiah Evans and was headed for a charging layup that would have given the Tar Heels the lead with just under three seconds left.
Foster fouled up that plan, however. He and Brown both jumped, cutting off the lob to Wilson.
Otherwise, this would have been the Caleb Wilson game. The only two players who could have defended a lob to him were both already in the air and facing away from him. If he got the ball, he would have been able to put it in to give the Tar Heels the lead with two seconds left.
In all reality, it still should be the Caleb Wilson game. He scored 23 points, showing he was every bit the equal of ACC Player of the Year favorite and six-time ACC Rookie of the Week Cameron Boozer. He scored 17 of them in the first half, as UNC held on with its fingernails to stay within shouting distance of Duke. He outscored his teammates by five in the first half and, with eight minutes to go before halftime, he had half of UNC’s points, rebounds and assists.
“He basically put us on his back in the first half,” said coach Hubert Davis.
When Duke built an 18-5 lead, its largest of the game, Wilson went to work, drawing a foul on Maliq Brown, then hitting a turnaround and a floater, then drawing a foul on Boozer and hitting both free throws. He added another turnaround, then a rebound and an assist, single-handedly keeping the Heels afloat and putting Duke’s big men in foul trouble. He drew five fouls in the first half—two on Boozer, two on Patrick Ngongba (who would foul out) and one on Brown (who would finish with four).
The game-winning lob to him was defended, however.
Options A and B were both off the table for Dixon. Time and space were both running out. Dixon was already at the basket, and the clock was slipping toward zero.
“We wanted to get something to the basket,” Davis said. “Derek was able to do that. We work on this—one of the options is, if the defender comes in, skip to the opposite corner. He checked down all the options, and the one option that was open.”
That option was Trimble—alone and forgotten, all by himself—an ice cream man on a snow day.
Almost forgotten.
Dixon remembered him, even though, looking at the replay, there’s no way he could have possibly seen him. He heaved a pass between defenders. It hit Trimble right in the hands.
“Honestly, we make that play a lot in practice,” Davis said. “We really do. That play, that pass, that shot is literally something we work on every day, and so there’s a reason why Derek threw it there. Because he knew a player, a teammate was gonna be there. And Seth was in the perfect spot. … Derek’s pass was amazing.”
The shot went up. Duke’s Dame Sarr took a step out of the paint and leaped in Trimble’s direction, but it was too late, and way too far away. Trimble released and stood there, arm in the air.
“I knew it was good,” Trimble said. “I had my little fadeaway. Like a little old man fadeaway that I had. That was my ‘I knew it was good’ fadeaway.”
He was right. It was good. And all hell broke loose.
Trimble turned, and a UNC bench player slapped his chest. He clenched his arms in front of him and ran away from the bench, into the paint, where all the players tasked with stopping him had been clustered seconds before. He was swarmed, by teammates, managers, cheerleaders. The mascot was there. And then everyone was there.
71-68 UNC. Their only lead of the game—a game that will forever be known as the Seth Trimble game.
And the Double Court Storm Game.
The fans flooded the court, celebrating wildly, as Duke huddled at the bench and the referees checked the monitors. And a frantic announcement came over the PA system. “Please clear the court. There is time on the clock. The game is not over.”
After several minutes, the court was cleared—and cleaned—for another .4 seconds of basketball, an inbounds, an off-balanced heave, and a second court storm.
“I’m still a little numb right now,” Davis said. “It was wild to hit the shot, people storming the floor, family members on the floor .4 on the clock trying to figure out how to defensively stop, because a lot of things can happen in .4 seconds, and then storm the floor again.”
The double storm was interesting—an oddball moment in the rivalry, but it had no impact on the outcome. No, the quirkiness of the two storms, less than half a second apart will fade, and the heroes will remain.
This game came one day shy of the 14-year anniversary of the Austin Rivers Game, one day shy of the sixth anniversary of the Tre Jones and Wendell Moore Double-Buzzer Beater Game, 34 years and two days after the Bloody Montross Game, 330 days after the Jae’Lyn Withers Game.
Someday, decades from now, Trimble will be a middle-aged restaurant owner, and people will be talking about this night—his game.
“It’s crazy. It’s crazy. I hadn’t even thought of that,” he said. “When I go to sleep tonight that’s the only thing that’s gonna be in my mind. You dream stuff like this as a kid. I grew up watching Marcus Paige make clutch play after clutch play, I grew up watching Coby White get a bucket whenever it was needed. To be able to step up in a moment like that and put myself in that history book is surreal.”
It all came together and will live forever. It was the perfect two storms.
