Alicia Thomas, a physical-education teacher in Watertown, New York, was already planning on making the roughly hour-long drive to the JMA Wireless Dome on Saturday for UNC’s men’s basketball game against Syracuse. She’d bought her tickets in January. But then, on Tuesday, she got a call from an old friend offering an upgrade.
“A couple days ago, Trevor (Trimble) called me and said, ‘Hey we’ve got two tickets for you,’” Thomas told the N&O on Saturday, referring to Seth Trimble’s dad. “He said, ‘Seth and I, our family, want you to sit with us.’”
And so it was that Thomas found herself seated next to the Trimbles — in the front row, just behind the UNC bench — to watch the Tar Heels beat the Orange, 77-64, on Saturday with forward Henri Veesaar back in the lineup.
Thomas, despite living deep in the heart of Syracuse country and spending her whole life in upstate New York, is a North Carolina fan. As you might imagine, it’s not often she gets to make the trip down to Chapel Hill to see UNC play. But that hasn’t stopped Thomas from forging a relationship between her school, H.T. Wiley Intermediate, and the Trimble family, as detailed in the N&O last fall.
It all started when Thomas met Trimble’s parents in a chance encounter outside the JMA Wireless Dome after a UNC-Syracuse game back when Trimble was a freshman. They kept in touch over the years and, during Trimble’s junior year, he recorded a short video for Thomas’ class.
Trimble, wearing a North Carolina Jumpman hoodie and standing outside on a sunny day on campus, spoke directly into the camera and delivered the following message to Thomas’ students:
“Coach Thomas, what’s up, I hope you’re doing well. Coach Thomas and you kids in the classroom at the Wiley School, I hope you guys are doing great. I just want to motivate you guys to keep going, keep up your grades in the classroom, to not be afraid to say ‘no’ and just stay focused. I promise if you guys stay focused and chase your dreams each and every day, that you guys will live the life that you want to live. So just keep going, and continue to be great. Appreciate y’all and go Heels!”
Thomas said that, when she showed the video to her students, “the whole class just erupted.”
“I was the cool one that day,” she told the N&O’s Luke DeCock last year.
And Thomas was the cool aunt on Saturday, bringing her nephew along to the game with her. Both wore Trimble’s jersey — “once they dropped in the (store), we immediately ordered them,” she said — and chatted with Trimble after the game.
The photo Thomas took with Trimble will, no doubt, be shared with her students come Monday.
“We have a little over 300 students, and some of them are Cuse fans — I’ve seen a lot of them here tonight, actually, when they were walking by — (but) I’ve converted some of them,” Thomas said. “The thing about these videos… we never get big-time athletes to send our kids anything. So when Seth shouted them out, it was game over. And the kids were constantly like, ‘When is he playing? When can we watch him?’ And so it really got a lot of them into it more.”
This story was originally published February 22, 2026 at 12:25 PM.
The buzz, the posse, whatever you want to call it, pressed in from every angle as he fielded postgame questions Saturday night. The whole time, the senior guard kept glancing over his shoulder — not because he wanted the moment to end, but because his teammates were already trying to pull him back into it. Or more accurately, pull him toward downtown Chapel Hill, where the celebration was already spilling onto Franklin Street.
They could thank Trimble for that. His 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left lifted No. 14 North Carolina (19-4 7-3 ACC) to its first lead of the night and a come-from-behind 71-68 win over No. 4 Duke (21-2, 10-1). Just a short walk from the corner in front of the UNC bench — where Trimble vaulted himself into rivalry lore alongside Austin Rivers, Caleb Love and Tre Jones — former Tar Heels who had navigated the court-storming chaos spilled into the home tunnel. Hubert Davis strutted off the hardwood and through the procession, high-fiving players like Antawn Jamison and Kenny Williams as he went.
“Pretty good, huh?” he repeated, his voice hoarse but fervent. “Pretty good, huh?”
After clearing the court and allowing Duke one final shot with .4 seconds to play, North Carolina guard Seth Trimble (7) and his teammate celebrate their 71-68 victory over Duke on Saturday, February 7, 2026 at the Smith Center in Chapel Hill, N.C. Robert Willett rwillett@newsobserver.com
Davis headed toward the locker room, where Trimble would soon be doused with water — a proper baptism for the senior captain, who had just enshrined himself in Carolina basketball history.
Further down the same hallway, Duke’s players filed toward the visitor locker room, heads down. Isaiah Evans, biting his jersey, kicked a plastic yellow wet floor sign. It ricocheted off the wall.
He had plenty of reason to be frustrated. Duke had relinquished a 13-point lead, with Trimble’s shot capping UNC’s largest comeback over the Blue Devils in 25 years. Duke took the last three games in this rivalry — “They whupped us last year… in every way possible,” Trimble said on the ESPN broadcast — but this moment belonged to the Tar Heels. And none more so than Trimble.
The Menomonee Falls, Wis., native faced a wall of reporters, phones thrust forward, recorders hovering. He was mid-answer when he heard some shouting. The voices were familiar.
A note for the uninitiated: UNC players don’t slip out the back door after games. Their locker opens straight into the postgame interview room, which is how Trimble found himself here on Saturday night, trapped in a scrum of journalists and party-crashing teammates.
“Question, Trimble! Question! Question!” junior guard Kyan Evans shouted, phone raised to record video. “When it came out of your fingertips, like, come on, what were you feeling?”
“I said green,” Trimble replied.
Clearly the right answer. It only made his teammates louder — chirping and chuckling all around him like baby birds at the feeder.
“I said cash as soon as it left!” junior guard Jaydon Young piped up. Derek Dixon — the freshman who assisted on the game-winner — emerged from the locker room and added, “I knew that was good, Seth!” Another simply shouted, “I love you, Seth Trimble!” as the players began to file out. Caleb Wilson joined them, at some point during the childish commotion, a bedazzled blue-and-white belt — which he’s used to punctuate several wins and worn on the cover of SLAM — draped around his neck.
North Carolina forward Jarin Stevenson (15) and center Henri Veesaar (13) race toward teammate Seth Trimble after he sank the game winning shot with .4 seconds to play, giving the Tar Heels’ a 71-68 victory on Saturday, February 7, 2026 at the Smith Center in Chapel Hill, N.C. Robert Willett rwillett@newsobserver.com
“How long this supposed to go?” a teammate asked in the distance. But the cameras kept rolling. The moment belonged to Trimble, and he wasn’t rushing.
“My teammates [are] leaving me,” Trimble said, laughing. “I’m trying to get to Franklin Street!”
But not yet. There was still time to take it all in.
“It just means a lot,” he said. “Me and HD [Hubert Davis], we’ve come such a long way. I see him like a father figure now. All he’s done for me, how he’s allowed me to grow — he means so much to my development over these last four years. I’m super thankful.”
‘I just burst out crying’
For all of Trimble’s athleticism — his jump-out-the-gym vertical and windmill dunks that give fans flashbacks to his older brother, JP Tokoto — he has never been known as a prolific shooter.
In 2023–24, he shot 41.9% from three, but in a limited role, averaging 17.1 minutes off the bench. After moving into the starting lineup last season, his percentage dropped to 26.6. The senior guard has been candid about that regression, particularly after a concussion he felt derailed his junior season and required significant mental rest.
The problem wasn’t strictly mechanical, but an issue of confidence and consistency.
The problem wasn’t strictly mechanical, but an issue of confidence and consistency. Before he arrived in Chapel Hill, Arizona transfer Henri Veesaar noticed Trimble’s shooting dip. The Estonian native stressed that Trimble needed to improve his 3-point shot to keep defenders from going under ball screens, and the two have since developed a post-practice shooting routine — the first time Trimble said an incoming transfer pulled him aside for extra work.
The payoff, though, was delayed.
Trimble played two games before suffering a broken left forearm in a team workout days after UNC’s early November win over Kansas. Even in that victory, he went 0-for-5 from deep.
By the time Trimble returned from a nine-game absence — during which he was sorely missed but remained a constant presence on the bench — he began to find his rhythm. He hit three 3-pointers and scored 17 points to help UNC hold off Ohio State in the CBS Sports Classic in December.
Trimble said working with a mental coach back home helped him “get over the edge.” He also reworked his shot with assistant coach Marcus Paige, adjusting his left hand, which had been too far in front of the ball.
“While I was out, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to get my left hand more inside the ball,” Trimble told reporters in Atlanta after the Ohio State game. “And it just comes out more fluid.”
The work continued over the last few months. Extra shots after practice. Extra workouts. Mental exercises. This week, Trimble’s mental coach, Kweku Smith, traveled to Chapel Hill to work with him ahead of the Duke game. His father, Trevor, declined to detail those sessions — they are private and should be protected, of course — but said they have been “part of the recipe” in preparing Trimble for moments like Saturday.
For shots like that.
North Carolina guard Seth Trimble (7) launches a three-point shot with .4 seconds to play against Duke to win the game 71-68 on Saturday, February 7, 2026 at the Smith Center in Chapel Hill, N.C. Robert Willett rwillett@newsobserver.com
“He was super calm today,” Trimble’s mother, Laurence Tokoto-Trimble, told the N&O Saturday morning at College Gameday. “Sophie [Trimble’s sister] and I went to his condo last night and we watched (TV) with him. He was super relaxed. He was enjoying himself. He had his buddy Avery over. We just relaxed for a couple hours, ate dinner together.
He’s the reason I’m as calm as I am today.”
The same could not be said for Laurence — or Sophie or Trevor — by Saturday night. After the shot fell and UNC fans stormed the court, Laurence was swarmed. Parents, former players, familiar faces from the program. Larry Brown stopped by. She danced with Theo Pinson and Justin Jackson. She yelled, “That’s my baby!” amid the cheering, hugging and chaos.
“I just burst out crying,” Laurence told the N&O. “That’s not even like me. I’m not emotional to cry over something like that. I’m usually dancing, laughing, having fun. I think this moment was so amazing. Oh my God.”
As she recounted the scene, Sophie sat nearby at the scorers table, clutching a digital camera and frantically trying to upload video of her brother’s shot. A few feet away, Trevor peeled off to find Roy Williams in his usual spot, tucked into a corner of the arena.
“It’s part of my thanks to those guys,” Trevor said. “Nobody knows when they call and send a message or take the time and pop in and sit down. And they have done that… I can go on and on, which is that the Carolina family, not only for Seth, takes the time to pour into those guys for him to have this moment.”
‘You cemented now’
In an era defined by roster churn, quick exits and transactional loyalties, there was something fitting — and almost defiant — about how this one ended.
North Carolina’s only four-year player. Hubert Davis’ first four-year recruit. The guy who nearly transferred out in 2024, who stayed, who endured the concussion, the broken arm, the shooting doubts and negative self-talk. He was the one standing alone in the right corner, the one Duke chose to leave open, the one who took the shot that will now live forever.
His 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left — the Tar Heels’ first and only lead of the night — will be replayed alongside the greats, folded into montages and memories and invoked every time this rivalry renews itself. It was the latest UNC dagger since Luke Maye’s 2017 NCAA Tournament shot against Kentucky with .3 seconds left, another chapter in a series that never seems to run out of them.
“He’s deserving of being remembered forever,” Davis said. “That shot was made by the perfect person at the right time.”
Trimble knew it was good, too. Not in a boastful way — but in the way you know something deep in your bones. When preparation and years of patience finally meets opportunity. And so a little celebration from was warranted from Trimble, who punctuating the biggest shot of his life with Steph Curry’s signature “night night” gesture.
Moments later came the mobbing. Then the chirping from his teammates. Pinson, too, barged into the postgame media scrum.
“I’m so proud of you, dog,” Pinson said, giving Trimble a few playful punches before pulling him in for a big bear hug. “You cemented now. You cemented. You a legend.”
Eventually, the noise faded — as much as it can on a night like Saturday. The court cleared. The questions slowed. And Trimble began the long process of understanding what he had just done — and where it placed him in the history books.
“This is what I came here for,” Trimble said, his voice cracking. “It means a lot. It means a lot. I’m getting emotional, but it’s what I came here for – moments like this, games like this and just to be that kind of player for my team. It means everything.”
Outside, Franklin Street festivities waited. Trimble couldn’t leave fast enough for his teammates who were so impatient to enjoy this moment with him. But Trimble didn’t hurry.
Staying, as these past four years have proven, has never really been a problem for him.
This story was originally published February 8, 2026 at 8:04 AM.
