UNC basketball caps perfect home record with win on Seth Trimble’s Senior Night
Kennedy Meeks dug up the photo not too long ago.
J.P. Tokoto still isn’t sure what made him do it. But a few weeks ago Meeks, his former teammate, scrolled deep into Tokoto’s Instagram and found the flick: a young Seth Trimble walking alongside his big brother in a Smith Center hallway — somewhere between the court and the locker room — carrying Tokoto’s bag.
“I always put Seth to work,” Tokoto told the N&O with a chuckle Tuesday morning. “He was always on little brother duty.”
The brothers can laugh at the photo now. But following in Tokoto’s footsteps, and stepping into his fourth and final season as a captain, has meant carrying an extra weight on Trimble’s shoulders. He said as much Tuesday night after No. 17 North Carolina’s 67-63 win over Clemson, a victory that secured a perfect 18-0 home record — the best in program history — and a fitting sendoff for Trimble and fellow captain Elijah Davis on Senior Night.
“I think I’ve had moments this year where I haven’t been the best leader,” Trimble said following the win. “I’ve let all of it weigh on me... but the guys have embraced me as leader, day in and day out, and they have given me a confidence that I’m still able to do it.”
That confidence, as it turns out, runs both ways.
Tuesday night became as much about the Tar Heels lifting Trimble as it was Trimble steadying them. When the game tightened late, it was Luka Bogavac who delivered — pouring in a career-high 20 points.
The junior hit six 3-pointers — including five after halftime. Three straight Bogavac triples in a critical second-half stretch flipped a 52-49 deficit into a UNC lead and forced a Clemson timeout.
When he heard that whistle, Bogavac paused, pumped his fist and screamed.
“I don’t know,” Bogavac later said when asked what he shouted. “I just yelled.”
.JPG "RAL_UNCCLEMSON-SP-030326-RTW_13 (1).JPG")
Regardless, his teammates noticed.
“That’s probably the most emotion I’ve seen from him,” forward Jarin Stevenson said with a smile.
Trimble, as it turns out, was a big reason for that emotion.
“It was huge,” Bogavac said. “It really matters to me, honestly. It’s one of the biggest things for us this season, just because it’s the last time that we have our captain at home.”
‘I didn’t run’
Maybe ironically, maybe fittingly, Trimble took a pause after Tuesday’s win to reflect on the time he almost left UNC. After two seasons in Chapel Hill, Trimble entered the transfer portal in early April 2024 — then withdrew later that month.
“It means everything that I stayed and I didn’t run,” Trimble said. “Most guys in my position, without a doubt, they would have transferred. They would have ran and they wouldn’t have faced the problem at hand. I was able just to battle adversity over these past four years, persevere... and embrace my love for the university.”
Trimble’s decision to stay wasn’t simple. Leaving after his sophomore year would have been “very, very logical,” Trimble said Tuesday.
“I took a huge chance coming back here with five-star freshmen (Drake Powell, Ian Jackson) coming in, the best guard in America (RJ Davis) returning, our lead point guard (Elliot Cadeau) coming back,” Trimble said. “The backcourt was packed.”
The then-sophomore, who averaged 17 minutes per game in his second year at UNC, weighed his options carefully. He talked to his big brother Tokoto “the most” during the process.
More than 4,000 miles away — in Lublin, Poland, where Tokoto is playing overseas — Trimble’s sibling still remembers those conversations.
“He actually called me a couple times about it, because he was real adamant — at first – about changing the scenery,” Tokoto said. “He was getting it from all different directions. From mom, dad, from me, maybe his friends. I know he talked to his girlfriend as well. So it’s all different perspectives.”
“But the one thing that I put on his mind was, the grass may look greener on the other side until you get there, and nobody’s been watering it,” Tokoto continued. “So it may look good at the moment, but long term, you put all this work in, and you’ve invested in this university so much. Do you really want to leave it now?”
The answer for Trimble, it soon turned out, was no.
“I took a chance because I couldn’t leave,” Trimble said Tuesday night. “I didn’t want to, and I couldn’t. The love I had for this place and everything else was just too strong.”
Tokoto thinks his little brother “made the right decision.” Of course, that’s easy to say now: the buzzer-beater against Duke, a career-best 30 points against Louisville and his ACC Player of the Week honor on Monday (the first of his career) stand out as recent highlights and proof of concept. But none of that was promised two years ago, when Trimble stood on that metaphorical fence.
Trimble returned to Chapel Hill for a junior season that tested him like few others. After suffering a concussion in late December, he missed three games and struggled to regain his rhythm upon returning. “I was fighting, fighting, fighting,” he later said. The injury disrupted his timing, vision, and feel. Trimble’s scoring, shooting, rebounding and assists all dipped post-injury. It didn’t help that UNC’s small ball rotations forced Trimble — who is “six-three on a great day,” Tokoto jokes — to play power forward at times.
Trimble, known for holding himself and teammates to a high standard, was outspoken after losses last year to Auburn, Stanford, and Duke, repeatedly calling for his team to “do better.” Even with offseason work on his on-ball skills and mental strategies, he acknowledged the season caused him to grow in more ways than one.
And ultimately, it made him stronger.
“That just goes to show his resilience,” Tokoto said. “He’s going to do what it takes. He’s going to sacrifice whatever he has to for his team’s success. And again, that just goes towards the type of person he is… to not get upset about it, to not let that affect his on-the-court stuff, to not be a bad teammate about it, or anything like that. That goes a long way with his character.”
‘Because he stuck around’
With five minutes left Tuesday night and UNC clinging to a 56-55 lead, Henri Veesaar soared to swat away Clemson’s RJ Godfrey on a drive to the basket. The ball was headed out of bounds when Stevenson launched himself into a row of photographers crouched along the sideline, snatching the rock mid-flight and flipping it back to Trimble — keeping the play alive and sending the crowd into a roar.
The stakes at hand — wanting to send Elijah Davis and Trimble out with a win on Senior Night — were a motivating factor, Stevenson said.
“And there’s also the record of going 18-0 at the Dean Dome,” Stevenson said. “There’s a lot of motivation. Just getting the win is big out there. So, yeah, just a lot of different motivations going out there, making plays… doing whatever I can to help the team win.”
A few minutes after that hustle play, freshman guard Derek Dixon delivered a dagger.
With 46 seconds on the clock, UNC pushed its lead to 64-59 when Dixon drilled a 3-pointer. The shot came off a high-ball screen from Veesaar, but Trimble also set up the shot, in a sense.
Trimble immediately took the freshman under his wing last summer, and the two have formed a bond so close that they call each other “twin.” Dixon said Trimble has been on him to stay confident — especially amid a recent shooting slump that’s seen Dixon shoot 28% from deep since January.
“He said he went through the same things, and just (is) always instilling confidence in me,” Dixon told reporters Tuesday, “and to hear that from Seth — all he’s seen and being our captain, that really gives me confidence.”
Even after Dixon’s big shot, this Tuesday night thriller with three ties and 10 lead changes — neither team leading by more than seven at any point — came down to the free throw line.
With 12 seconds left and UNC up by one point, Bogavac was fouled and set to the charity stripe. Veesaar, watching anxiously from the bench after picking up his fifth foul, clasped his hands together in front of his face.
“I was just praying that thing goes in,” he said later with a laugh.
It did go in. Both free throws, in fact. Trimble sank another in the final seconds to give UNC a four-point lead. But before Trimble attempted his second free throw, his head coach had to make one last substitution with .9 seconds remaining.
“I said, ‘Elijah, go in,’” Hubert Davis said, recalling the moment after the game, “and it’s almost like he didn’t remember his name. He just looked at me, ‘We’re putting me in now?’”
Yes. His dad wanted him to be on the court at the end. Hubert Davis had thought back to his own final game — against Georgia Tech in 1992 — and wanted his son to have that memory himself.
Trimble missed his last free throw (not that it mattered for the outcome) and then immediately found Elijah Davis and gave him a hug.
Experiencing that moment at UNC, with his dad on the sidelines, meant a lot to Elijah Davis. But sharing the night with Trimble meant a ton, too.
“Seth’s really special me, man,” Elijah Davis said. “Just coming in as a coach’s kid, it can be rough, and you can kind of get looked sideways. Seth has accepted me from day one. He’s allowed me to be myself every single day… I’m so blessed that I got to play these two years with him.”
That two-year ride at the Smith Center came to a close on Tuesday night. After the final buzzer, but before the Senior Night speeches, the two walked together through the handshake line. Bogavac stood a few paces ahead of them. As the Montenegrin passed the scorer’s table, he spotted Trimble’s dad, Trevor, in the stands and pointed to him — his way of telling him, ‘That’s for you.’
“I really love his family,” Bogavac said. “They were really huge for me, for my adjustment (to Chapel Hill). They helped me a lot. They welcomed me as part of the family. I’m really lucky to be around them.”
It’s one example of the roots Trimble formed by staying in Chapel Hill for four years. This week, he was one of just 22 high-major scholarship players nationwide celebrating Senior Night at the same school where they began their careers, per CBS Sports. How many more players like him will come through UNC — or any program — is uncertain. It’s a reality that makes Hubert Davis “nervous.” Trimble said he hopes he’s not the last.
But Tuesday night made one thing clear: while Trimble’s big brother was watching thousands of miles away in Poland, Trimble had plenty of brothers there at the Smith Center — from nearby in Chapel Hill and as far as Estonia and Montenegro.
“This is his second home,” Hubert Davis said of Trimble. “The relationships that he has built over the last four years — those aren’t just relationships with his time here — those are relationships for the rest of his life. And it’s because he stuck around.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2026 at 7:30 AM with the headline "UNC basketball caps perfect home record with win on Seth Trimble’s Senior Night."
