New Trier grad cleaning up on the court at Macalester College

They call him the "Garbage Man."

New Trier graduate Noah Shannon is cleaning up in his freshman season with the Macalester College men's basketball team.

He's impressed Scots' coach Abe Woldeslassie, a Macalester alumnus in his fifth year with the Division III program in St. Paul, Minnesota.

"He does all the dirty work," Woldeslassie said.

"He's guarding the other team's best offensive player, no matter the position, 1 through 5 (point guard to center). He's very versatile.

"Noah's 6-5, he has the strength to guard some of the bigger guys, he has the agility to cover the smaller players. He's a very smart player, he's got a high IQ. And he came from a really good program at New Trier," said the man players call "Coach Abe."

On Jan. 28 Shannon had one of his best games to date. In a 69-63 win over St. Scholastica in Duluth, Shannon scored 15 points with 9 rebounds to help lift the Scots to a 12-6 record and 9-5 in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, good for third place.

According to the Macalester website, the last time it finished with a winning record in the MIAC was the 2003-04 season. In Woldeslassie's first season, 2018-19, Macalester was 4-16 in league play.

The Scots came close last season but have never made the Division III national tournament.

"Now with Noah and some other recruits we feel like we have a great chance to make it this year," Woldeslassie said. "He's making a very, very large impact as a freshman on a winning college program."

Shannon's 6 points and 4.3 rebounds a game are somewhat similar to last year's statistics at New Trier, 9 points and 5 rebounds a game to earn all-Central Suburban League South.

"He's a kid who really improved between his junior and senior years, he started on our team that went 30-4 last year," said New Trier coach Scott Fricke, who's also got 2022 graduate Jackson Munro contributing at Dartmouth.

"I think his best basketball is in front of him. It's great to see the success he's having at Macalester right now, I think he loves it out there."

Shannon has started 17 of 18 games this season. The one game he didn't start, a 64-61 loss to Crown College, he was sick and still played 27 minutes.

Just a few years ago, Shannon gave up playing basketball.

He came into New Trier 5-foot-8, added a couple inches as a sophomore, but said he questioned whether the constant practice was worth the limited playing time he was getting. He didn't see much of a future in the sport for him.

"I kind of lost my love for the game. I don't know if I burned out or what it was," Shannon said.

Temporarily more interested in just lifting weights, he rekindled his love for basketball playing with an Amateur Athletic Union team the summer before his junior year.

He also added three more inches of height, and after making the New Trier varsity as a junior, caught the eye of Woldeslassie and associate head coach Conner Nord in AAU ball that spring.

The coaches continued watching Shannon his senior season. One of the clinchers was New Trier's sectional semifinal win over Rolling Meadows when Shannon scored 26 points and held Michigan State-bound Cam Christie to 9.

"He was playing so good we started getting nervous, like we might not get him," Woldeslassie said.

Macalester did, and now Shannon is relishing his role.

"I'm like the garbage man of the team, as everyone says," he said. "I just try to clean up and create for everyone else, and it's been working pretty well so far," Shannon said.

Shannon, who is considering studying computer science, gets a kick out of the international flavor of the roster. From Northfield, he's the sole Illinoisan on a squad that includes players from Nigeria, Pakistan and Senegal.

"Everybody I knew who I played with was within 10 minutes of me. Now I'm on a team where you have to fly halfway around the world to visit their home," Shannon said.

Like most college freshmen and especially college student athletes, he's learning to manage his time between attending classes, practices and games, and doing homework.

It's coming along nicely, including on the court with the Scots.

"We have three freshmen and all are playing a decent amount," Shannon said. "The team's pretty young, so just being able to come together as a team, I think that progression from where we started to where we are now is pretty neat."