Finding a happy place at Trinity
HARTFORD — Ben Callahan-Gold left his public high school in Manhattan and, following well-meaning advice, went the AAU and prep school route and found himself playing high-level college basketball at Tulane.
He was livin’ the dream, you might say. But it wasn’t necessarily his dream.
“At that time, it seemed like the best option for basketball and academics,” Callahan-Gold said. “But after my first year, I kind of realized that what Tulane offered was not what I wanted out of my college career. I entered the transfer portal, and I knew I wanted to play in the NESCAC.”
What Callahan-Gold wanted may be a little hard to describe, but he has found it in Division III at Trinity, where he is playing in his third season, close to home and leading a closeknit team at both ends of the floor and has helped the Bantams win their first 14 games.
Trinity, off to its best start in 20 years, is ranked eighth in Division III. You don’t mess with winning, and you don’t mess with happy.
“Tulane was a place where I could have grown into a player who’d get significant minutes,” said Callahan-Gold, 6 feet 8, who played in one game as a freshman in 202021, scoring three points against Final Four-bound Houston. “But it was a longer process, and at that time I wasn’t ready to dive in and say, ‘Let me go and do all this work and not play.’
“I really wanted to play, and that was my focus. Trinity offered me a place to play immediate minutes and have immediate impact, and that’s really what I valued over the high-level school with the name.”
Trinity began conference play on Friday with an 83-69 win over Colby, and Callahan-Gold came out onto the floor with a smile that stayed on his face throughout warmups, a contagious spring in his step, the look of a player who loves where he is at. He scored 20 points in the game, with seven rebounds and five blocks.
“I knew this was the place for me when I really started hanging out with my teammates,” said Callahan-Gold, a psychology major
“Once I left my public school, Beacon, I never had a group that from top to bottom really loved each other and were friends. To be part of that, and for them to immediately accept me, I knew because of the bonds with my teammates it was the place for me.”
Callahan-Gold made his name with his sweet 3-point shooting stroke, a pretty, high arching shot, making over 100 in a season during his prep days at Northfield-Mt. Hermon, and leading the New England Small College Athletic Association with 59 during his first season at Trinity.
This season, Callahan-Gold is averaging 16.6 points, 6.5 rebounds and
1.6 blocks. The Bantams play tight defense, holding teams to 53.3 points per game and 35.0 percent shooting from the floor. They held Colby without a field goal over the first 8 minutes Friday; the opposition had a hard time getting good looks while Callahan-Gold was on the floor.
“He’s known mostly as a shooter,” coach James Cosgrove said. “But he’s done a good job developing other parts of his game for sure. He does a hell of a job on the defensive end. He has definitely been a great leader. He and Dana Smith, our other captain, have been tremendous leaders.”
Connecticut is a hot state for D-III basketball and Trinity had notable in-state wins in the nonconference schedule, beating UHart, which is completing its transition from D-I, 74-38 on Nov. 12; Saint Joseph, which reached No.1 in the national last season, 70-58 on Nov. 18; Mitchell College, which played in the NCAA Tournament last season, 87-31 on Dec. 6; and Western Connecticut, which lost the Little East final in OT last March, 84-46 on Dec. 9.
Smith averages 9.1 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists, Henry Vetter (14.3 points, 3.9 assists), Jarrel Okorougo is averaging 10,6 points and point guard
Will Dorian 5.1 points, 2.7
assists.
“They’re so much together,” Cosgrove said. “They’re so unselfish in making and trying to make the right plays for each other and spreading the ball. That’s been a real key for us. We have a good, resilient group and they play hard, get things done when they need to.”
Best team he’s had in his 14 seasons? “Ask me in March,” Cosgrove said.
The Bantams, who played Bowdoin at home on Saturday, have most of their NESCAC rivals in front of them, including Connecticut College Jan. 12, Wesleyan Jan. 20 and the regular season finale at Tufts, which is ranked fifth in the nation, but lost to Conn College Friday.
“We really embody being family,” Callahan-Gold said. “On the court, we’re really fighting for each other. It’s not about me doing this, or someone else doing that, it’s about all of us being together and getting the win at the end of the day. Stats are fun and stats are cool, but if you don’t win, it doesn’t matter.”
More for your Sunday Read:
Nika Muhl still dealing dimes
Overshadowed by the processing of Aubrey Griffin’s knee injury at Creighton on Wednesday, Nika Muhl picked up seven assists, the first of which was No. 500 of her UConn career.
“I’ll never forget, when we were recruiting Nika, she said to me one time that she would much rather have an assist than score,” Geno Auriemma said. “A lot of kids say that, they don’t really mean it. But she said something I
hadn’t thought of. When you score, one person is happy – you, because you scored. When you get an assist, that kid’s happy and so are you, because you were responsible for that basket. And that’s the way she lives, and that’s the way she plays, so I am not surprised she got there, especially this year.”
Muhl had a school record 284 assists last season, 7.9 per game with Paige Bueckers out and KK Arnold still in high school. This season, Muhl has had to share the sharing, and is still averaging 5.2 assists per game.
“She got seven with KK and Paige out there,” Auriemma said. “They’re all trying to figure out what to do and she still controls what’s going on out there, still controls the team.”.
Stephon Castle building his NBA stock
With Donovan Clingan out, the UConn men really needed freshman Stephon Castle to play like the one-and-done, lottery pick many projected him to be. After a rough start, he made several winning plays down the stretch vs. St. John’s Dec. 23 and has kept going.
Buy stock now. At Butler Friday, with 23 NBA scouts in the building, Castle had 14 points, nine rebounds and four assists, playing position-less ball as Dan Hurley had to maneuver around foul trouble.
“I feel like Coach sees me as a very versatile player,” Castle said. “We’re going to have guys in foul trouble, so to be able to move around to different positions, that’s something I can do with my frame and my abilities.”
Considering the way the Bucks feel about Andre Jackson Jr., a player to whom Hurley compares him, Castle could be growing his stock as an NBA prototype.
Sunday short takes
It’s January, snow on the way, a good day to close your eyes and imagine
Luis Tiant’s delivery in slow-motion to “Gathering Crowds,” the closing theme music from This Week in Baseball. It’s a baseball fan’s version of “The Green Lady” in Star Trek.
The trade for OG Anunoby couldn’t fit the Knicks better. Coach
Tom Thibodeau, the New Britain guy, is winning more personnel debates with the front office than he is losing these days and the Knicks, looking like a No. 4 or 5 playoff seed, are better for it. Now, about Thibs’ extension …
Don’t be surprised if UConn is extra-cautious with Clingan. Foot injuries, historically, can be particularly troubling for big men.
Here’s hoping the YES-MSG merger doesn’t end up making it more complicated and expensive for older folks, who just want to turn on their TV and watch their team.
Madison’s Jack Driscoll, a versatile backup on the Eagles deep offensive line, could do very well for himself in free agency.
UConn’s Tage Thompson, an NHL All-Star with the Sabes, has regained his high-scoring form since recovering from an injury. Finally cleared to play without a brace on his left hand, he has three goals and an assist in his last two games.
Last word
We’ve been writing a lot about injuries lately, but this is not about any particular team or player. One can understand the desire for privacy with regard to medical information and the laws in place to protect it, but shouldn’t sports injuries be in a different category?
Many blessings come to pro and major college athletes. In college, these now include financial blessings and rightfully so, but there should be a fair trade-off. It’s not about reporters, it’s about the fans who invest emotionally and are asked to invest financially in their favorite teams and players.
You drop hundred’s on a player’s jersey, you’d like to know their status when they’re out with an injury.
UConn is better than most in this area, actually, but across all sports and levels there’s so much more hide-and-seek nowadays with information fans want. They look to reporters and we’d like to provide it. Trust me, opponents and insiders are going to figure out what’s going on, so the advantage of secrecy is vastly overrated.