America East Basketball: 25 best players from last decade (2013-23)

4. Trae Bell-Haynes

Originally from Toronto, Bell-Haynes is a 6’2 point guard who spent a very impressive four-year stretch at Vermont, arriving in 2014. Bell-Haynes not only ran the offense for the Catamounts, but he was an important part of that scoring attack and contribute quite a bit on a number of successful Vermont squads, while also picking up quite a few personal accolades by the end of his playing days.

Year one was a modest success for a freshman point guard, especially one who started nearly every game for the Catamounts. He was a double-digit scorer for the three years following and was a decent shooter and ball distributor. Bell-Haynes averaged no fewer than 3.5 assists per game in each collegiate season, including a pair of 10-assist road games. Bell-Haynes also had a slew of impressive postseason showings, including a 15-point effort in his one trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2017, a first round loss to Purdue.

It wasn’t just the 97 wins that Vermont had during his time on campus, but Bell-Haynes was also named America East Player of the Year in consecutive seasons as an upperclassman. He was the backbone of Vermont basketball for so much of his time in Burlington, with very good scoring, steal, and assists numbers during that time. Bell-Haynes became yet another Vermont player to win multiple Player of the Year awards in the conference and produced a ton of success.