Trinity Men’s Basketball Returns After a Historic 2023-2024 Run

Annika Haley ’26

Sports Editor

The Trinity men’s basketball team is back and ready for another thrilling season after an outstanding 2023-24 campaign that left an incredible mark on the program’s history. With an impressive 30-2 overall record and a 9-1 performance in the NESCAC, the Bantams delivered a season that will be celebrated for years. Highlighting their success, the team captured the NESCAC championship for the first time since 2008 with a hard-fought 59-52 victory at top-seeded Williams College. Building on their conference dominance, the Bantams advanced to the NCAA tournament and made it to the Final Four for only the second time in school history. In the midst of their success, Trinity earned their highest ranking in program history at #2 last season and currently holds the sixth spot in the preseason ranking for this upcoming season. 

With the 2023-24 season behind them, the question now arises: What’s next for Trinity after such a remarkable run? Following their historic NESCAC championship and Final Four appearance, the Bantams have set a high standard for themselves. Will they maintain their elite level of play and make another deep postseason run? How will they use the momentum to achieve success this season? As the team gears up for a new season, Trinity Men’s basketball is preparing to continue their dominance and solidify their place as a powerhouse in Division III college basketball. 

The Tripod had the opportunity to speak with guard Henry Vetter ’26 regarding his reflections on last year’s season, his expectations for the upcoming season and his own personal growth and performance. Vetter recently made history as the first Bantam to be named a D3hoops.com Preseason All-American. Last season, Vetter showcased his talent and versatility, earning him D3hoops.com All-Region First Team along with NESCAC First Team honors. Vetter averaged 14.5 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game while playing 28.5 minutes per contest, all career highs. Additionally, he led all of Division III in free throw percentage at 93%. 

Starting with Vetter’s personal impact on the team’s success, he shared, “It felt really cool being a part of one of Trinity’s best seasons ever. I am thankful to have done it with a bunch of guys I admire and appreciate. It felt good because we worked really hard and it was a long season so to reap some benefits from our hard work was nice.” Vetter then expressed what he believes were the key factors to an outstanding 2023-24 season: “The most important factor was our togetherness as a team and willingness to make plays for each other. It’s very easy when you have a lot of good players to get caught up in the noise or what people say but we were just invested in winning as a team, and all that matters was getting a win at the end of the day. It turned out really well for us. Not to mention, we played a lot of people. Everyone was super important, there wasn’t just one guy doing the bulk of the load. It took a lot of people to get to where we got.”

Regarding this upcoming season, Vetter explained what the Bantams have been doing in the pre-season to build on last years momentum by stating, ““We have a lot of hard workers on the team that are in the gym multiple times a day and put their bodies through a lot of sacrifice to get to where we’ve gotten. Obviously we lost some players this year, so a couple guys will have the opportunity for a bigger role. Not to mention our incoming class; there’s a lot of good players coming in. A lot of guys have been working their tails off this past summer. We are preparing for a good year and definitely want to stack another successful season on top of last year. We don’t want it to seem like it was a one off showing or a fluke. Last year happened and it was great, but that’s last year, so I think all of us have moved on to this year and are focusing on what we can do to win games this season.” Continuing on this theme, Vetter shared how the team will channel that momentum into this upcoming season and his expectations for this season: “We are channeling the energy from last year and trying to shift it into this year. We don’t want to get too caught up in the past and what has already happened but we do know the things that worked well for us as a team last year so we are carrying some of those over. Carrying some of those traits and factors over will definitely be big to continue the success we saw last year. A lot of guys have to step up this year. There’s a lot of new roles for people, so we all just have to be open to seeing what’s going to work with a different team and different players. It’s not going to be the same, but we are trying to channel the energy, attitude and mindset that we carried last year, and the basketball will take care of itself.” 

Vetter made a closing statement to wrap up his reflections on last season and his ambitions for this year as he said, ““Hopefully we get people to come out and support this year, that was big for us last year. It was really cool to have some of those playoff games at home and see a lot of people supporting the basketball team. Like I said, we work really hard and we didn’t just win games because we got lucky. We have a lot of guys who bought into the success of the team and they weren’t exactly worried about personal image or persona; that’s why we were good. We have plenty of guys who could be playing at other schools and be some of the best if not the best players, but we came here to win and it was nice to see that pay off last year. Hopefully we can do the same this year, we just need to have a team first mentality and worry about getting wins because that is what’s important. Nobody remembers how many points anyone scored in the games last year, they just remember that we were 30-2 and went to the Final Four.”