Dana Altman and the Oregon Ducks won a commitment Monday from an extremely promising prospect with a name (and stature) familiar to any basketball fan.
Bol Bol, a 7-foot-2-inch 18-year-old at Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada, is the son of former NBA center Manute Bol. He’s also the No. 1 center and No. 3 overall player in the 2018 recruiting class, according to 247Sports, a skilled big man with as much defensive promise and much more offensive polish than his father.
Here’s a video of him being way taller and more talented than every other high school kid:
Bol explained his commitment to Oregon in an essay on The Players’ Tribune:
I felt like the whole coaching staff knew my game — and I’m not just saying that. Both Coach Altman and Coach Stubblefield broke down why my style is a bit different from just any other big man. I’m tall (obviously), but I’m not my dad. He was a true big man, a guy who played in the paint and blocked shots. But I like to work from the perimeter. I like to put the ball on the floor. I get a lot of satisfaction from passing to someone who’s more open than me.
And throughout all those talks with the Oregon coaching staff about what they envisioned for me, they mentioned all those things.
They said my perimeter game was one of the things they were most excited about. They prepared film for me — some of it was of my AAU games and some of it was of old Oregon games. And I could picture myself in their offense. I could picture myself on that court, in their jerseys. I don’t know how else to explain it — I could just feel it. They made me believe it. Coach Altman even said that even though he wants me to get strong, he doesn’t expect me to gain more weight than is actually possible. It was one of those little things he said that made me feel like, I don’t know … like he got me.
As he progresses through what could be a long and successful basketball career, Bol will obviously face many comparisons to his 7-foot-7-inch father, who died in 2010 when the younger Bol was 10 years old. Manute played 10 NBA seasons for four teams, twice leading the league in blocked shots.
But while Manute never developed much of an offensive skillset (40.7 percent career shooter in the NBA), Bol Bol is expected to contribute on both sides of the ball. By all accounts Oregon seems to be getting not only good genes but also a great player.
