Before Melo Trimble was one of college basketball’s rising stars, he did not box out an opponent at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington. He jogged back to the huddle, where coach Joe Wootten met him with a stare.
“Do you want to win?” asked Wootten, the son of distinguished former DeMatha High School coach Morgan Wootten.
“I want to win!” Trimble seethed.
Trimble pulled down a rebound on the next possession, but what Wootten remembers most is the passion in his voice. All players will say they want to win; Trimble made you feel it.
“You could challenge him,” Wootten said, “and he would always respond.”
As No. 4 seed Maryland enters the NCAA tournament Friday with a first-round game against No. 13 seed Valparaiso, Trimble will face his toughest challenge yet. Though he is only a freshman, he will be tasked with helping guide the team through a gauntlet of win-or-go-home games in the program’s first NCAA tournament appearance in five years. When the clock is winding down, or the game is on the line, he may very well be the one with the ball in his hands.
The Terrapins won a program record 26 games in the regular season, ranking as high as eighth in The Associated Press’ weekly poll, but received one of the toughest draws in the NCAA tournament. They could meet the No. 1 overall seed, Kentucky, in the Sweet 16, or college basketball powerhouse Kansas, coach Mark Turgeon’s alma mater, in the Elite Eight. Few pundits believe they will get that far.
Maryland is comfortable in that underdog role. After five players transferred out of the program last summer, the Terrapins were picked to finish 10th out of 14 teams in their first season in the Big Ten Conference. With a roster of untested freshmen and transfers, they were viewed as a rebuilding project.
Instead, they finished second in the Big Ten with an unbeaten conference record in College Park.
“I don’t know what lies ahead. Hopefully good things. Hopefully a tournament run,” Turgeon said last week. “But no matter what happens, we know it’s been a great year. We’ve had guys step up, get better. It’s been a fun year. It’s been great for our fan base; it’s been great for everybody. We know going forward that this year’s going to help us.”
Trimble’s individual emergence has followed a similar arc, repeatedly silencing doubts and outperforming projections.
Raised in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, he arrived at Bishop O’Connell as a good, but not great, recruit and left as a McDonald’s All-American. When he arrived at Maryland, he was viewed as a good recruit — not the next star player to come from the D.C. area.
“He’s always exceeded expectations wherever he’s gone,” Wootten said. “He always had that something special in him. You could see it. But I think it built over the years as he developed in high school. He was in this constant state of growth and always hungry to get better.”
Trimble made the varsity team as a freshman in high school because of his defensive tenacity, Wootten said. Then, for a while, he was primarily a spot-up shooter. Then a dangerous slasher, constantly attacking the rim. Then, finally, a distributor and point guard, the latest step in his evolution.
When he arrived in College Park this fall, Trimble was in the process of transforming his body. He gave up fast food and dropped 18 pounds while still maintaining a muscular physique. A mental transformation followed. Trimble spent more and more time in the film room, studying future opponents and critiquing his own game.
“He’s come a long way,” senior Dez Wells said. “He’s a special player.”
Trimble leads the team in scoring at 16.3 points per game and was recently named to the U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s freshman All-America team. Some of his most impressive performances this season have occurred on the most important stages. In a pivotal mid-January game against Michigan State, for example, he scored 21 points in the first half alone, punctuating the performance with a crossover, step-back 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded.
“He always seems to make big things happen in big games, and that’s what big-time players do,” senior guard Richaud Pack said. “I expect that out of him. That’s kind of what he does. He’s that kind of player who takes on challenges and feeds off that type of energy.”
Wootten believes Trimble’s demeanor stems from a unique combination of inner confidence and unrelenting humility. The confidence comes from his work ethic, Wootten said, while the humility comes from his mother, Kim Trimble, who works in human resources for the federal government.
Trimble’s penchant for stepping up in pivotal moments is nothing new. When asked to describe him, Wootten used a popular phrase in basketball circles: competitive greatness.
“John Wooden coined it, but it’s to be at your best when your best is needed. That’s Melo,” Wootten said. “He always wants the ball in his hands, and I never took that in a selfish way. He just really enjoyed having the ball in his hands, and he’d always make the right play.”
Every spring, the NCAA tournament seems to produce a new batch of stars. At a time when everything happens on a national stage, and the end of the season is just one loss away, certain players rise to the top.
Is Trimble next?
“I just have it in my head that I want to prove to everybody that I belong,” Trimble said. “High school, I wasn’t really one of the choices to come out and be one of the stars or whatever. Since then, I’ve just had something to prove. And that’s where I am now.”
• Tom Schad can be reached at tschad@washingtontimes.com.
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