Trinity College Bantams
2017-2018 Record: 15-10 (4-6 NESCAC), lost in NESCAC Quarterfinals
2018-2019 Projected Record: 13-11 (2-8 NESCAC)
Key Losses:
G Eric Gendron ’18 (11.7PPG, 4.2REB/G, 3.2AST/G)
G Jeremy Arthur ’19 (11.3PPG, 4.1REB/G, 43.1% FG)
Projected Starting Lineup:
G: Christian Porydzy ’20 (8.9PPG, 3.6REB/G, 3.4AST/G)
Porydzy is the facilitator for this squad. He shares the ball willingly, he’s athletic enough to beat defenders off the dribble, and his jump shot is good enough that opposing teams have no choice but to respect it. Because Porydzy is such a solid all around player, he’ll have to do pretty much everything a littlebit better for Trinity to see more success this season. There’s no doubt that he’ll need to have an uptick in scoring given all the scoring they lost from last year, but the Bantams are also losing a lot of rebounding, which is an area that Porydzy excels in despite being a smaller guard. They also suffer the loss of the second team leader in assists, so Porydzy will have to pick up some of the slack from there as well. Through 7 games this season, we aren’t seeing Porydzy improve his production from last year, so keep an eye on the performance by the point guard in Hartford.
G: Nick Seretta ’20 (7.5PPG, 2.8REB/G)
One of the biggest issues last season and so far this season for the Bantams is the lack of a playmaker. They need a guy who wants the ball in his hands at the end of a close game and can execute in those big spots. A guy who consistently puts up 15 points and grabs 6-8 rebounds per game. Seretta should be that guy. He’s got the size and athleticism to be one of the league’s premier players, yet his stats don’t reflect that at all. In fact, he hasn’t really seen an improvement in his numbers at all, despite Trinity losing their top two scorers and two of their top rebounders from last season. In their two losses thus far, Seretta scored 16 points on 5-16 shooting including 1-7 from beyond the arc. He followed those two games by putting up a goose egg in 23 minutes in the two-point victory over Southern Vermont. Seretta needs to be better moving forward because Trinity will only be able to go as high as he can take them.
G: Kyle Padmore ’20 (5.3PPG, 2.3REB/G, 52.6% FG)
Padmore is another guy who could fill the “best player” role simply based on his physical attributes. He has height and length, and he is a very efficient scorer as you can see based on his 52.6% field goal percentage from last season. In the early going he has already doubled his scoring average as well as largely increasing his rebounding and assist averages. This is exactly what the Bantams are hoping for from a guy who is seeing an increase in minutes. Because of his size he’ll likely be tasked with defending bigger guys, so it remains to be seen if he can bang around with some of the larger bodies that he’ll see come conference play. He’s still figuring out how to take a bigger role, but it appears Padmore is up for the challenge at a time when Trinity really needs it.
F: Donald Jorden, Jr. ’21 (4.2PPG, 4.4REB/G, 67.9% FG)
The Tampa, Florida native is off to an incredibly efficient start in his sophomore campaign. He, too, has nearly doubled his scoring and rebounding averages through 7 games and continues to shoot an eye-popping percentage from the field. Granted he’s playing over twice the amount of minutes he was playing last season, so the numbers make sense. Regardless, this kid is playing really good basketball and he is doing everything that Coach Cosgrove could ask. Jorden will face a similar challenge to Padmore in that he’s a bit undersized for the “4” position, but his length and athleticism should surely close the gap in terms of height and weight. He should pose a number of matchup problems, so look for Jorden to continue the outstanding pace he is setting for himself.
F: Connor Merinder ’19 (5.5PPG, 4.7REB/G, 49.6% FG)
Merinder represents really the only big body that Trinity puts on the court in the starting five. His rebounding and scoring numbers are respectable, but his main duty is defending opposing bigs and doing what he can to eliminate the size disparity between the Bantams and most other NESCAC starting lineups. Nearly every team at this point has one or two guys between 6’7” and 6’10” that act as a true center, like Matt Karpowicz of Williams or Luke Rogers of Tufts. What I like about Merinder is that although he doesn’t do a ton of scoring, he shoots a high percentage which will at least force other teams to respect the inside game enough to open up options for other guys. Merinder isn’t going to be the most standout player on the roster, but his value is unmatched and he’ll do his best to compete with some of the other bigs around the league.
Everything Else
This season will certainly be an interesting one for the Bantams, who lost two of their top players from last year. The main focus for them will be on the offensive end where they struggled at times last season. In five of their ten losses they failed to even reach 60 points, and they ended they year 3rdto last in the conference with 71.1 points per game. It would appear that the main reason for this was that shots just weren’t falling. Trinity plays good defense and don’t turn the ball over very much, but their field goal percentage was middle of the pack and their 3-point shooting percentage was only two spots away from dead last in the league. This second stat is especially concerning given that their lineup is very guard-heavy. These guys won’t be able to compete very much if they aren’t hitting shots from the outside, because we know their strength is not in the paint.
Another key focus for Trinity this year is depth. So far this season the Bantams have not looked particularly deep, and it seems as though their rotation really just consists of 7 guys. They like to bring Joe Bell ’20 and Colin Donovan ’21 off the bench, the latter of the two being a solid scoring threat. Again the issue of size resurfaces. Neither of those two role players off the bench is over 6’3” so it’ll be a challenge for Trinity to match the size of some of the stronger teams in the conference. With this being the case, they simply need to be hitting more shots. Hopefully Coach Cosgrove has stolen a page out of Tom Izzo’s book, because with their lack of size, they need to be taking and making better shots. If they can spread the floor, speed up the pace of the game, and be a bit more efficient in scoring then they have a real shot at stealing a few wins. If they aren’t able to do these things, it’ll be a very long year in Hartford.