Trapps’ breakout performance a payoff of persistence

The story Thursday night for the Coastal Carolina men’s basketball team was that the Chanticleers were able to shake off two humbling losses with one of their most dominant performances of the season, reminding everyone of the potential this team still has when everything is working.

But the subplot in that 87-58 win over Presbyterian was perhaps even more compelling.

Junior guard Ron Trapps, mostly a fixture at the end of the bench for his three-plus years in Conway, scored a career-high 21 points while draining 5-of-7 3-pointers and 8-of-11 shots overall to lead the way for the Chants.

It’s not that Trapps had come into the night averaging only 4.6 points per game this season or that he’d never scored more than 11 points against any Division I opponent – it’s that before he even played his first game for Coastal Carolina, there was legitimate uncertainty if he’d ever be able to suit for the Chants due to a serious knee injury sustained prior to his freshman year.

“It’s a blessing,” Trapps said after his big game Thursday night. “Coming off that knee injury I didn’t even know if I would be able to play again, let alone play 27 minutes in a college game. So it’s just a blessing. It’s something I’ve worked hard for, prayed for and I’m just thankful for the opportunity.”

Coming out of Lancaster via a year of prep school at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia, Trapps had spent the summer of 2012 on campus preparing for his freshman season with Coastal Carolina before suffering a ruptured patellar tendon during the first official day of practice while trying to take off for a fastbreak layup.

The diagnosis he was given from senior team orthopedic surgeon Dr. Richard Ward would have been discouraging for any young player, but the one he wasn’t directly given was even worse.

“The diagnosis was I’d be out for 14-16 months,” Trapps said. “My mom didn’t tell me at the time, but Dr. Ward told my mom it was one of the worst cases he had ever seen and he didn’t know how I would respond to it. Luckily they just told me that last year and not when it happened.”

Said Chants coach Cliff Ellis: “I didn’t know if he would [recover]. There was a doubt as to whether he’d be able to play because of the seriousness of the injury. But he rehabbed extremely well, he had good doctors who looked after him and he has just stayed the course. And through it all he’s been able to manage it. He’s lost some mobility, but he’s made the most of what he has.”

Trapps was expected to be groomed under then-senior point guard Kierre Greenwood during that 2012-13 season, but instead he’d sit out that year and then play in only 10 games as a redshirt-freshman during the 2013-14 campaign.

By last season, Shivaughn Wiggins had arrived as the Chants’ point guard of the future and Trapps averaged only 3.4 points and 3.8 minutes off the bench in eight games as a sophomore.

It wasn’t until this August, though, that he started to feel like himself again, finding his rhythm a bit during the Chants’ exhibition trip to Cuba.

“I felt like I had my first step back. I wasn’t as sore after every practice and every game as the past two years,” he said.

This season he’s played in 16 of the Chants’ 17 games, averaging 10.9 minutes per game off the bench. With the team’s depth decimated by injury, he’s found a little more opportunity of late and took advantage of Presbyterian’s zone defense Thursday while delivering a breakout performance.

Altogether, he’s now averaging 5.6 points per game and shooting a respectable 39.1 percent from 3-point range (18-of-46) and a solid 48.5 percent from the field overall.

“He’s always had the capability to score the basketball,” Ellis said. “His knee injury has cut down some mobility, but he’s always been able to shoot the basketball. When Presbyterian played zone, that [freed] him up a little bit. It’s good for him. He’s gone through a lot, he’s battled a lot of injuries and to see him come out and play the way that he played was certainly a positive. …

“He’s never lacked confidence in his shot. Never, never, never. We just try to keep him focused on his defense and what he needs to do, and when he’s open we don’t mind him shooting the ball.”

The Chants are expected to get junior guard Colton Ray-St Cyr back from a broken wrist soon, so minutes could be tougher to come by for Trapps, but then again, if he can build off his performance Thursday night any team can find a role for a productive perimeter shooter.

Either way, he says he doesn’t waste any time thinking of what might have been if not for the knee injury – he’s just thankful for the opportunity he has now.

“I try to keep those thoughts out of my mind and just try to live 24 hours at a time, take whatever is thrown my way and just make the best of it,” he said.

This story was originally published January 15, 2016 at 7:38 PM with the headline "Trapps’ breakout performance a payoff of persistence."