A redshirt freshman, he entered late in a 63-50 Illinois State win, but after two turnovers and a foul in three horrifying minutes, Redbird coach Dan Muller had to remove Hein and put senior star Paris Lee back in.
It’s not easy to forget things like that. It stuck with Hein throughout a transformative offseason. A sliver of it may still be in the recesses of his mind.
For the most part, he has “moved on,” he says. Saturday served to illustrate the extent of that movement. As Muller pointed out, Hein was playing against “the same team” and in “the same game (semifinals).