Sports

Wadleigh alum turns JUCO year into Mississippi State scholarship

Trivante Bloodman had options after graduating from Wadleigh, but they didn’t interest him. There was prep school and Division II offers. Then there was junior college. He liked that even less.

“I thought junior college was for people with bad grades,” he said.

He didn’t belong in that category. It was an unheard of route for a qualifier, a dirty word.

Its music to Bloodman’s ears now.

At the suggestion of AAU coach Steve Goldstein and Wadleigh coach Mike Crump, the 6-foot-1 guard gave it a try and landed at Olney Community College in Illinois. He blew up there, landed scores of Division I offers and signed with Mississippi State and new coach Rick Ray on Friday, as first reported by The Post.

“It’s like a dream come true,” he said. “Everybody’s proud of me.”

Bloodman enjoyed a solid senior season at Wadleigh, averaging 23 points per game and leading the Tigers to the PSAL Class AA quarterfinals. The knock on him was he was an undersized shooting guard, a Division II player. At Olney, he proved otherwise, transitioning to point guard.

The Division I scholarship offers didn’t come immediately. Then he broke out in a 97-70 rout of Lakeland in front of a handful of Division I coaches. He had 25 points and 10 assists and drew the eye of Texas Tech head coach Billy Gillispie, who was there to watch Lakeland point guard Jamal Williams and left impressed by Bloodman.

He offered Bloodman, his first Division I scholarship offer coming from the Big 12. Plenty of others joined the party. Seton Hall, Milwaukee, Cleveland State, Duquesne and Utah State all followed suit.

“He always wanted to play with the best players out there and he proved he was one of them,” Olney assistant Dan Matic said. “He played with a chip on his shoulder. The opportunity arose and he took it.”

“He put his money where his mouth is,” said Crump, the Wadleigh coach. “He went from not being able to get a good Division II offer to the SEC.”

Mississippi State came in later than the others, but Bloodman was taken with the Bulldogs. He developed a quick bond with assistant Chris Hollender, his lead recruiter, a straight shooter who didn’t mince words. Mississippi State, Hollender told him, was in rebuilding mode and saw Bloodman as a building block. He took an official visit this weekend and fell in love with the place.

“I had to go there — it was calling me,” he said, laughing.

There are those out there who aren’t sure Bloodman is good enough to play in the SEC. One Division I coach familiar with him said he isn’t certain, either, but did say the Harlem native is a “crafty point guard who can get in the lane with ease, is a very good on-ball defender and will continue to get better with added strength.”

Matic feels Bloodman was one of the best perimeter defenders he saw all year, because of his quickness and 6-foot-6 wingspan. At Wadleigh, he had to score; at Olney, with more talent around him, he was a fine playmaker and still averaged 15.4 points per game to go along with 3.1 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 1.8 steals. He was tabbed Great River Athletic Conference and Region 24 Freshman of the Year and was also a finalist for player of the year honors.

“He did everything that was asked of him,” Matic said. “He came to Olney with something to prove and he left having proven people overlooked him.”

Bloodman could prove to be a trailblazer. Junior college, he said, prepared him better for the next level. The level of competition is higher, facing older players — “grown men,” he said. He’d suggest it to prospects that were in his situation.

“It’s like you’re playing Division I basketball,” he said.

That’s where Bloodman’s headed — to the highest level in fact — in part because of a wise choice he made.

zbraziller@nypost.com