IU's Trent Sisley 'wasn't one of those guys that came in and looked like a freshman'
BLOOMINGTON – It’s in the little details that Trent Sisley sees the benefits of the past 12 months manifest themselves now.
He freely admits the adjustment his senior year, when he made the decision to transfer from Heritage Hills to prep powerhouse Montverde (Fla.) Academy, was not always easy. There were moments of homesickness, and challenges to overcome off the floor as well as on.
But now, the Santa Claus native can reach back for those experiences — both in basketball and in becoming more organized and independent — to flatten his learning curve at the college level.
“Being away for that year really got me ready to be in college,” Sisley said. “Traveling, scouting imports, weights, everything like that, all the detail stuff that you don't really have at some levels of high school, we had there. It's closer to college, so it's been really good."
Even more, it’s worked.
Listed now at 6-8, 215 pounds, Sisley doesn’t look physically overwhelmed by Big Ten-level basketball. His shot has improved, and his progress has impressed his new coach enough for singular praise as the Hoosiers prepare for their summer trip to Puerto Rico beginning next week.
“Trent's done a great job,” IU coach Darian DeVries said. “The first couple of weeks he was really impressive. He wasn't one of those guys that came in and looked like a freshman. I think he's learned very quickly.”
One of precious few holdovers from the program’s previous direction, Sisley stuck with his Indiana commitment through the transition from Mike Woodson to DeVries in the spring.
Heritage Hills’ all-time leading scorer and rebounder, he was a four-star recruit out of high school who made the decision to spend his final year pushing himself in the hyper-competitive environment at Montverde. Playing alongside fellow Division I signees like CJ Ingram (Florida) and Hudson Greer (Creighton), Sisley averaged 10.9 points and 5.7 rebounds per game, hitting 46.7% of his 3s.
“The competitiveness (of the Montverde environment), that was one of the biggest things for me,” Sisley said. “A place like Montverde, and even coming here, the skill of all the players, the physicality in practice, you’ve got to get used to it, carving out your role on the floor.”
If his peers brought something fresh out of Sisley last year at Montverde, DeVries wonders if the experienced roster Sisley stepped into this summer hasn’t done the same across the past two months.
Indiana as a team is almost fully remade ahead of DeVries’ first season. The only Hoosiers returning from last year’s roster are walk-ons Ian Stephens and Jordan Rayford.
Sisley at least can come armed with some knowledge of the program’s history, as the only scholarship player on roster from the state of Indiana. And some recommendations in Bloomington as well, given how many recruiting visits he took to IU across his prep career.
But what Indiana might lack in institutional knowledge, it does not in pure college experience.
Six of 13 scholarship players are seniors or older in terms of eligibility. Sisley is one of just three first-year players on roster, and the only one currently in Bloomington (international signings Aleksa Ristic and Andrej Acimovic are expected to join the team soon).
Exposure to that sheer weight of experience at the Division I level has elevated Sisley’s game across the course of the summer.
“In the summertime, everything is like it's going in warp speed. We don't wait much,” DeVries said. “We kind of throw a lot at them, and that way they kind of have everything and we'll work our way backwards almost, which is, for Trent, your head can be spinning a little bit.
“But I think he's done a really good job of coming in, figuring out the college game and the speed of it. He's adjusted well, and I'm really excited about what he's doing.”
What role that translates into across his freshman year remains to be seen. He stands to see plenty of the floor next week on the Hoosiers’ foreign tour, with Jason Drake and Nick Dorn potentially sidelined by injuries as well.
DeVries has emphasized Sisley’s shooting development this summer, as part of settling Sisley into a system Sisley said he’s worked to learn “inside out.” On the floor, whatever his endgame this winter, Sisley said the experiences he can draw on from his year at Montverde make the process more straightforward every day.
“Obviously the physicality of stuff the first few days, learning everything was tough,” Sisley said. “But now it just feels like basketball again, and you're still trying to get better at everything, but it just feels like basketball when you come in to practice, and you’re trying to get better and carve out your role.”
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