Photo Credit: Pine Journal
Adam Trapp, a 7-foot-2 rising junior center from Esko (MN) High, is one of the top big men in the Midwest in the Class of 2018 and is considered the number five prospect in the Class. Trapp played with high school team recently at the Minnesota Golden Gopher team camp.
Trapp averaged 3.8 blocked shots per game this past year for the Eskomos, leading them to a 27-4 record, including a 52-40 loss to Annandale in the first round of the Class AA boys’ basketball state Tournament. They allowed just 40 points per game in the regular season and outscored their opposition by 26.3 points per game. He was held to three points and three rebounds in the loss. It was the fourth straight state tournament appearance.
Trapp is expected to take a bigger role this season with the loss of Jaxson Turner, an all-around athlete who will play football at North Dakota this fall.
Trapp comes from an athletic family. His sister, 6-foot-9 Savanna, signed with UCLA, out of high school and Molly was a 6-foot-6 freshman volleyball player this year at Wisconsin-Superior.
Gopher Hole caught up with Trapp to talk about the latest on his recruitment.
Gopher Hole: You have had a lot of success this spring with your AAU team, the Wisconsin Playground Warriors. How pleased are you with the way that you have been playing?
Adam Trapp: I think that we are doing really good. We are starting to come together a little bit more as a team. The last tournament that I was at, we were missing some of our better players, Tyler Herro, and we had to kind of work through that adversity and that went pretty well and we ended up winning that tournament, which I played really well at. I think that overall, we have been playing really well as a team and we have been putting in a lot of work, so we can get better to win those tough games that we have been winning.
Gopher Hole: You are playing at the Gopher team camp with your high school team. Have you had an opportunity to do a lot this summer yet?
Adam Trapp: During the week, we get to go to all our open gyms and we have league games during the week that we get to play in. That is going pretty well.
Gopher Hole: It looks like you have gotten a little bigger and stronger?
Adam Trapp: I have been working out a little bit to get stronger.
Gopher Hole: What are you up to height and weight-wise?
Adam Trapp: Right now, I am 7-2 ½ and 225.
Gopher Hole: What did you weigh during the season?
Adam Trapp: Like 200.
Gopher Hole: What would you like to get up to before next season? Have you given much thought about that?
Adam Trapp: I don’t really have any thoughts about anything I want to get to, but I just know that I need to get a lot stronger.
Gopher Hole: What things are you working on besides getting stronger to continue to improve yourself as a player?
Adam Trapp: I have been working a lot on finishing better. You can always finish better and free throws, you can always work on those. I haven’t been the most solid free throw shooter ever, so I have been working on that and a lot of conditioning, so I can get up and down the floor
Gopher Hole: I know that last week was the first week the college coaches could call you directly. What schools did you hear from so far?
Adam Trapp: I heard from Purdue, Iowa, Wisconsin, DePaul, Tulsa, South Carolina and Stanford. Those are the ones off the top of my head.
Gopher Hole: I know that Purdue offered you recently. How many offers are you up to right now?
Adam Trapp: I believe that I have three. Purdue, DePaul and Iowa.
Gopher Hole: Are you hearing much from Minnesota yet?
Adam Trapp: I haven’t heard too much from them, but we stay in contact. They contact me, too and we stay in contact like that and we talk.
Gopher Hole: What coach from Minnesota do you talk with the most?
Adam Trapp: Nate (Pomeday). I talk to Nate quite a bit.
Gopher Hole: What would it mean to play Division I basketball?
Adam Trapp: It would be everything. That is what I want to do with my college career, so that is my main goal to get there.
Gopher Hole: Do you love basketball? I know that obviously you are tall and you play, but do you have a love for the game?
Adam Trapp: Yes. I really enjoy basketball. It is my favorite thing to do ever.
Gopher Hole: Are you going to any college or individual camps this summer?
Adam Trapp: I am trying to go to Purdue’s camp, but I have another tournament, so I can’t go to that one and was going to go to Wisconsin’s, but it was not an invite one, but anyone can go to that, so they said it would be a waste of time, because it would be too many people.
Gopher Hole: You have made it to the state tournament the last two years. What are the expectations this upcoming season?
Adam Trapp: We have a smaller team this year aside from me. We lost a lot of height from our three seniors, who were very good defenders that we lost. We lost our starting point guard that we had for the last four years, so that is going to be hard to transition from, but I think that we have a lot of talent this year. We’ve just got to get more dialed in on shooting and get some ball movement going and I think that we can be really good. I expect us to go back to the state tournament this year.