There's no Trey Barber and no Tyler Henderson in this Christopher Newport huddle, or any other the rest of the season. Photo by Pete Meshanic, d3photography.com

By Ryan Scott
D3hoops.com

CHESTER, Pa. – “I hate the term ‘defending.’ ” 

That’s John Krikorian talking. He’s the head coach Christopher Newport, the defending Division III men’s basketball national champion. 

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“I’ve never had exactly the same roster from year to year. 2022-23 was an incredible season, one will always remember and celebrate, but it’s 23-24 and we have to help this group of talented young men become their version of Christopher Newport basketball.”

On the surface, there weren’t a lot of changes. Most of the prominent members of the title team were back on campus to start the year. What was missing, though, lays under the surface and behind the scenes.

“Matthew Brodie was the guy, the glue,” says Krikorian. “He did all the dirty work and guarded the other team’s best player. He was one of the most coachable guys I’ve ever had. Rodney Graves was a steady presence off the bench to hit big shots and play defense, but we had three seniors on the bench, who didn’t see much time, but they ran the team.”

Nick Thomas, Tyler Trimble, and Brandon Edmond made sure the trains ran on time, kept everything positive on the bench, and set the tone for the team. To lose five seniors and replace them with freshmen changes a team. It doesn’t mean there’s a leadership vacuum or something is missing, but the new version of the champs had to be something different.

Jahn Hines has become the de facto leader, but he continues to get support from those who’ve gone before him as he works to bring along the next generation of Captains.

“I’ve always kept it real with teammates, from the very beginning, but I do keep in touch with alumni, asking them how to handle different situations, getting advice. I talk to them every week. With so many freshmen, there’s a lot of energy, they keep it light and fun – it’s like a whole new team.”

Krikorian described the season as trying to fix a boat while you’re at sea. “It seemed like every time we plugged a leak, a new one would pop up.”

That happened early. CNU got walloped by current NCAA Tournament favorite Hampden-Sydney early. Not just a well-prepared team with a fairly intact roster from the year before, but a team that wanted to avenge an NCAA Tournament loss to CNU on their home floor… in the most recent game they’d played in March.

CNU wasn’t ready, but as Krikorinan puts it: “Failure is required for success. It’s miserable and we hate it, but we have to go through it to get where we want to go.”

Things wouldn’t get any easier as returning players started dropping like flies. Collin Hines went out for multiple games with injury. Two fifth-year guys, who were being counted on for big minutes, got hurt. Devon Parish was out for the season early and Ian Anderson missed big chunks of time on multiple occasions.

Krikorian and crew found themselves in an unusual spot: playing a lot of freshmen a lot of minutes.

“The freshmen were awesome. That was how the identity of our team formed – a lot of teams have older guys showing the young guys the ropes and they don’t play a lot. A number of our freshmen earned their keep right away. Freshmen are the only ones without any pressure; they just play!”

It was these same freshmen who came up huge in the wins over Hobart and Widener this past weekend. Often looking like kids compared to the slew of grad students Widener trots out, the freshmen showed up in the biggest moments and, as is typical of CNU, seemed prepared beyond their experience.

“It starts in practice,” says Krikorian. “If you have to guard Jahn Hines everyday, you better figure out something pretty quickly. Our daily regiment of practice and being thrown into games with the lights on – having success at sometimes and really failing other times.”

CNU has a history of success in March, especially under Krikorian. Over his 14 years at the helm, if you were recruited by him and stayed four years, you got to a Final Four. This year’s senior class has never gone home before the Sweet Sixteen, so even though their accomplishments this weekend might’ve been unexpected to everyone else, it was par for the course for Hines and company.

Adds Krikorian: “We’re Christopher Newport. Nobody is out there acting like we’re an underdog. I don’t think [the players] can even look at themselves as underdogs or that they don’t have a chance. I’m certainly not going to tell them to think otherwise.”

From outside the team, however, the story of the season has largely been who isn’t here. CNU is missing 62% of the minutes played in last year’s title game. Most notably, All-American forward Trey Barber, starting point guard Tyler Henderson, and key reserve Caleb Furr all played for Christopher Newport this season, but are no longer on the roster.

Jake Latta, left, and Isaiah Dozier make up some of the key new faces in the Captains' rotation this season. Photo by Pete Meshanic, d3photography.com

Inside the team, though, the struggle was about identity – not trying to live up to some past success, but determining what this year’s team would need to be to find success in 2023-24.

Krikorian cites a road trip, following a disappointing home loss to local rival Virginia Wesleyan, as the key. 

“We spent a couple days in Philadelphia – we got to spend a lot of time together. We talked about what had happened and where we wanted to be. We wanted to play faster. There was a renewed commitment to our defense. It included embracing the freshmen, who had earned their keep and not treating them like freshmen.”

“Once we got there,” he adds, “the guys coming and going was in the background. This group was moving forward together fast.

Barber posted a video on social media over the holidays about being suspended, which elevated the storyline, and after returning to the team briefly he posted another video from Nigeria. But the internal forms of these conversations happen across Division III every year – players and teams deciding what they want and need – and maybe that those things are better found apart rather than together.

“I have nothing but positive feelings for those young men and what we were able to accomplish together last year. There are lifetime memories. I choose not to think of it any other way,” says Krikorian. 

“Every season is a new season, with new players, and a new identity that needs to be formed. Some years there are players who don’t align with the goals and identity of the team. That gets sorted out and you move on. The identity of the team has taken a shape that they or we feel didn’t include them.”

“I see them on campus. I see them at games. We’re doing all we can to put the most successful team on the floor with the integrity of the game and the values of the program at the forefront. That doesn’t change how we feel about any individual, and I think everyone involved genuinely wants everyone else to find success in whatever they do.”

It’s often said that success in sports is about belief, which can be a wishy-washy sort of cliche that players and coaches use to describe something they can’t actually articulate. I’m not a fan of the imprecise. However, having watched Christopher Newport dispatch a tough Hobart team and an incredibly (superiorly) talented Widener squad in person, belief might be the only explanation I can come up with.

Hines notes how important adaptability is to CNU’s success. “Losing players always hurts you, especially when it's unexpected. Having the depth that we did to have players come in and step up. We’ve found the group and it’s locked in.”

Krikorian’s teams now have more than a decade of results that show them consistently performing above expectations – and not just overall, but individually as well. Freshmen come off the bench, into unexpected roles, and excel, seemingly beyond their own abilities. I’d chalk that up to good coaching; Krikorian disagrees.

“Sports doesn’t build character, it reveals it. We want to recruit the types of guys that are OK with adversity, that will look themselves in the mirror and will respond. If they need help to come along, we have a whole group in the locker room that knows how to do that. It’s from within them; my only job is to help bring it out.”

Fifth-year senior Jake Latta had the game of his life against Hobart, fittingly in Philadelphia, where the whole season had come together two months before. He had 21 of his 72 total points on the season in that game and anchored the interior. He found himself at the postgame news conference wondering what to do, since he hadn’t participated in one since high school. Latta is an example of a guy who’s put in the time, effort, and dedication to be in the right place at the right time, the epitome of CNU basketball.

Tragically, the next night, against Widener, he went down early with a knee injury that likely ended his college basketball career. Freshman Ethan Ward came in, looking very much the deer in headlights, but scooped up those minutes against a bigger, more experienced team, and made huge plays on both ends of the floor to help secure victory.

They’re also playing out of position more often, to fill gaps, and pitch in. That’s easy when the leader is on board. I was surprised how often Jahn Hines found himself in the post, on both ends of the floor, against Widener. He wasn’t.

“I just want to win. Wherever Coach needs me, I’ll be there.”

They’re going to need more of the same this weekend, facing Williams, a very similar team to Widener: plenty of experience across the board and likely more size at every position.

Then you look across at Christopher Newport, a team we expected to be mature and experienced, defending a title, and you see an entirely new squad, with a new identity, and just four available players who aren’t freshmen. Yet they’ve earned their way to the Sweet 16 and they have no plans to go home anytime soon.