This All-American has Northwest Missouri State poised for another Division II run
It goes without saying that Trevor Hudgins was overlooked as a basketball recruit now that he has been chosen the NABC Division II men’s player of the year at Northwest Missouri State.
After seeing everything he has accomplished at the Division II level, there are undoubtedly several Division I coaches who have come to regret not taking a chance on the 6-foot and 180-pound guard a few years ago when he was playing at Manhattan High School, located a short walk down the road from Kansas State’s college campus.
Hudgins has since blossomed into a bonafide star for the Bearcats. As a junior, he is averaging 20.2 points and 4.7 assists for a team seeded second nationally that has won 25 games and will play No. 7 seed West Liberty in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Tournament at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Evansville, Indiana. Also Wednesday, No. 6 seed Truman State plays No. 3 Flagler at 8:45 p.m.
“He can score in so many different ways,” Northwest coach Ben McCollum said of Hudgins, “and it’s all set up for him, whether it be off the bounce or because he has got such a tight handle. He’s really able to read our ball screens and play in space ... He’s just a very humble kid, very poised and hard to rattle. He can do so many things on floor.”
Still, not even McCollum was sold on Hudgins the first time he watched him play.
It was the summer of 2016, before his senior year of high school, and McCollum liked what he saw and heard about the recruit. When one of his assistants said no teams were seriously talking to Hudgins, he wondered if it was because he needed to develop as a defender. He wanted to see more.
“The biggest thing that I was concerned with is can he defend at an elite level?” McCollum said. “I hadn’t seen him really getting into a really good stance in high school. So I went and watched him at a pickup setting. Somebody made him mad one time and he really sat down in a good stance and really guarded. I realized he did have that explosion that we needed. I think at that point we offered.”
Good move.
Hudgins waited until his high school career came to an end and then committed to Northwest following a visit to campus in the spring of 2017, not long after the Bearcats won their first national championship.
He sat out his first season on campus with a redshirt, and has been on an upward trajectory ever since. Hudgins was voted Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association freshman of the year in 2019, MIAA player of the year in 2020 and then an All-American in 2021.
That alone would probably be enough to make Northwest one of the favorites heading into the Elite Eight. But here’s what makes the Bearcats truly dangerous: Hudgins isn’t even their leading scorer.
That honor goes to senior forward Ryan Hawkins, who is averaging 22 points and 8.5 rebounds.
“Ryan is very versatile,” McCollum said. “He can shoot, drive and he can post. He also doesn’t really wear down ever. That obviously makes him a threat in a variety of ways. It makes him a mismatch nightmare, just because he’s bringing some height as well.”
McCollum thinks they are “both perfect fits for the way we play offense.”
With Hudgins leading the way, the Bearcats have been efficient all season.
“We all have trust in the group as a whole,” Hawkins said. “We know whoever is out on the court, we can trust that they’re going to do their job and know they’re going to give that extra effort to make the winning play.”
This story was originally published March 23, 2021 at 2:11 PM.