Last season when we conducted our top 8 roster experiment, there were only three people who picked Trent Pierce to land himself inside the top 8 in the rotation. Out of more than 40 submissions, only three thought Pierce would be an impactful player. That wasn’t a knock, necessarily, on Pierce. After a freshman season in which he saw double digit minutes in only 4 games on a bad team, few had any idea what we might get from the sophomore.
But Pierce stood out early with a good performance against Memphis to open the season, and then had a solid run through non-conference play which set up a move into the starting lineup by the start of conference play.