Seth Trimble’s Milwaukee homecoming leaves UNC guard — and his family — speechless

Seth Trimble got to pick the restaurant, one perk of having all the local knowledge. Unfortunately, it couldn’t take North Carolina’s traveling party on short notice Wednesday night.

Carnivor’s loss was Mo’s gain, Trimble’s second-choice steakhouse being no less luxe than his first, and more of a Milwaukee institution to boot.

Trimble grew up going to Bucks games at Fiserv Forum, where North Carolina plays Mississippi on Friday in the first round of the NCAA tournament, while growing up in the Milwaukee suburb of Menomonee Falls. Always as a fan. Only once as a player, until now, at halftime of a Bucks game as a little kid, at the old Bradley Center.

Trimble had been contemplating the possibility long before the Tar Heels even ended up in the bracket, and even when Milwaukee ended up as the Tar Heels’ potential first-round destination if they could advance out of the First Four, his father Trevor didn’t dare bring it up when they talked Sunday night. But Seth did. He couldn’t hold back.

“Obviously, we acknowledged, take care of business,” Trevor Trimble said from the stands at Fiserv, as he watched North Carolina’s open practice Thursday. “But who wouldn’t want to come and play back home? UNC being in Chapel Hill, when Seth committed there, coming back to Milwaukee wasn’t even a thought, a possibility for us as a family.

“So to be blessed like that, to be able to come back home and play in front of his family and friends in his home state. It felt like a dream when we first saw it. And then to see them dominate in Dayton the way they did, and know that it’s a reality, it’s just incredible.”

The realization that he might be coming back here was also the reason for Seth Trimble’s stoic reaction to North Carolina’s inclusion in the bracket while his teammates were jumping around and yelling. That deadpan stare went viral, but Trimble wasn’t trying to play it cool. If anything, it was the opposite. Beat San Diego State in Dayton, and his next stop was home.

“Part of the reason I had a straight face, because I was in shock,” Trimble said. “I saw Milwaukee there, I saw the opportunity, I literally got chills in my body. It was what I’d been dreaming about for the last week.”

The NCAA tournament has a habit of throwing up these unexpected homecomings. A year ago, then-Kentucky coach John Calipari found himself back in Pittsburgh, where he grew up and, as it turned out, briefly. The loss to Oakland was his final game in blue. Zion Williamson’s one NCAA tournament at Duke started in Greenville, S.C., minutes from his hometown of Spartanburg. Players who grew up in places hosting first-weekend sites often watch the Selection Show with fingers crossed, hoping for the trip home they didn’t get as a player. If you’re not a top-four seed, you’ve got a one-in-eight chance.

Generations of North Carolina players from outside the ACC footprint have gotten that experience as a rite of passage, during the regular season. Wayne Ellington at the Palestra. Tyler Hansbrough at St. Louis. Marcus Paige at Northern Iowa (although Paige was injured and the Tar Heels lost). Tyler Zeller at Evansville. Valparaiso at the United Center(!) for Bobby Frasor. Jeff Lebo in Hershey, Pa., against La Salle.

The closest Trimble got, until this week, is Notre Dame. Now he’s taking full advantage of the comforts of home. He actually beat his parents home from Dayton, taking an Uber from the team hotel to his childhood home on Wednesday to visit his sister and the family dog Buster — a black-and-white Jack Russell-French bulldog mix — while his parents were stuck in the Cincinnati airport.

“I’ve been in Fiserv all my life, watching the Bucks games, I have plenty of friends in Wisconsin,” Trimble said. “My family’s still there in Wisconsin. This means everything and more to me, literally God’s blessing. I was talking with my dad three or four days ago, about like, what if — NCAA tournament, we get a bid in Milwaukee, how crazy would that be. I made it come true.”

With the help of generous teammates, he scrounged up 30 tickets for family and friends for Friday afternoon. After Thursday’s open practice, Trimble stopped on his way off the court to take pictures with a young girl with special needs who connected with him through his high-school custodian. He was very much a man among his people.

His father, however, will have to adjust. Trevor Trimble has Bucks season tickets in the first row behind the visitors bench. (Which often means giving them up; he hasn’t missed one of Seth’s games in three years at North Carolina.) He was hoping he could end up sitting in seat 5 or 6 of section 116, the exact same seats where he and Seth have so often watched the Bucks play.

But that’s typically the higher-seeded team’s bench, which means the Ole Miss families will likely be occupying those seats. For a chance to see his son play at home, in these familiar confines, Trevor Trimble can deal with the adjustment.

“To see him in the tournament, and play for this great university, and it happens to be in Milwaukee where he was born and raised?” Trimble said. “It leaves you speechless. It really does.”

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This story was originally published March 21, 2025 at 6:15 AM with the headline "Seth Trimble’s Milwaukee homecoming leaves UNC guard — and his family — speechless."

Luke DeCock

The News & Observer

Luke DeCock is a former journalist for the News & Observer.