NCAA Notebook: Hinkle Is Home For Everyone in Trice Family

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – One of the best games of the day on Sunday is Wisconsin and Baylor hooking up at iconic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. And for Wisconsin point guard D’Mitrik Trice, there's a lot of great family history in the building on the campus at Butler University. Hinkle is home for Trice family

Trice scored 21 points in Wisconsin's 85-62 blowout victory over North Carolina on Friday night at Purdue’s Mackey Arena in West Lafayette. It's been a weekend of great memories for Trice's father, who played two years at Purdue before transferring to Butler. The Badgers (18-12) take on top-seeded Baylor (23-2) on Sunday afternoon at Hinkle in an NCAA tournament second-round game.

In the elder Trice's second-ever game for Butler, he made seven three-pointers and scored 24 points in a 75-71 win over No. 11 Indiana in Butler’s home opener of the 1993-94 season.

“It takes me back,” Travis Trice Sr. told the Wisconsin State Journal. “It’s great getting an opportunity to be in the gym once again and seeing my son out there performing.

“It’s somewhat majestic. The reason I say that is you have those big windows and on an afternoon game that can have the sunlight (shine) down on the court.”

D'Mitrik Trice called it "a special moment" not just for him but also his family.

Baylor coach Scott Drew is also quite familiar with Hinkle. He attended Butler and got his start in coaching as a student assistant there.

“I love it because it's a good shooting gym,” Drew said, “and we need to make shots.”

The Trice family has been bouncing back and forth between Indiana and Rockford, Ill., all weekend because their daughter Julie, a sophomore at Bowling Green played two games there in the WNIT.

Now they'll all be back in Indianapolis on Sunday when Wisconsin takes on the top-seed Baylor Bears.

“Now, the next thing is for us to go get this win and shock the world,” Travis said. “It’d be incredible.”

Loyola, Illinois finally back together

Loyola was a feel-good basketball story for the ages three years ago when it made a stunning run to the Final Four, with Sister Jean cheering them on.

Well, Loyola is back again this year and after beating ACC champion Georgia Tech in the first game of the tournament, the Ramblers play Illinois on Sunday afternoon in an interesting in-state showdown that hasn't happened since the 1960s.

Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, he 101-year-old team chaplain for Loyola, is in Indianapolis with the team, and she did a Zoom call with the media on Saturday. She talked about what it's like watching a Loyola game with her.

“None of us talked during the game at all until halftime,” she said. “I just like to be quiet and play right along with them. I like to watch their strategy. People say, ‘Sister Jean, do you pray during the game?’ I say, you better believe I do.

“I want God to help them all the way, and I don’t want them to get injured. And (Friday) that floor needed mopping just about every time they ran up and down the floor.”

She thinks Loyola can win again.

“I have to do some of this with my heart,” she said. “When bracketologists do these brackets, they do some by heart, some by head and some by numbers. So this is by heart. I have to put Loyola there to the Sweet 16 ... That’s a lot of heart in there.”

The last time the teams played in the NCAA Tournament was 1963, when Loyola beat the Illini to advance to the Final Four — eventually winning it all. Sister Jean was 43 at the time and remembers the win over Cincinnati in the NCAA title game — but not the Illini game.

“We didn’t have TV until the final game,” she said. “So there wasn’t that much watching.”

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