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The California Golden Bears already have two signings in Idrissa Diallo and Ahamaad Rorie for the 2014 recruiting class. Could they add a third player as a late spring addition?
Per @RGBearTerritory, Austrian recruit seven-foot power forward Jakob Poeltl is sitting behind the Cal bench tonight.
— Glenn Borok (@GlennBorok) February 6, 2014
Jakob Pöltl (Poeltl) is a seven-foot power forward hailing from Austria. He is a bit on the skinny side but displays outstanding offensive efficiency and could be a nice weapon to pair with Diallo. He needs some work defensively but in time could turn out to be an excellent shot-blocker.
The numbers are encouraging. Poeltl has dominated competition in his Austrian league, shooting 73.5% from the field. Here is a good breakdown of Poeltl's game from European Prospects, which gives a scouting report that sounds eerily similar to David Kravish.
His leaping abilities and running skills help him to be a good factor in transition where he can get the ball and finish on the dunk even with taking one or two dribbles. Overall, he can be considered as being greatly skilled for a player of his size as his fundamentals are well developed and his footwork is good as well. This helps him to beat his direct opponents on the dribble but also be dangerous in the low post where he has however some development to do in back-to-the-baskets moves. His quickness is also a factor that makes him quite a good offensive rebounder.
On the defensive end, Pöltl hols his position against seasoned veterans in the Austrian league. Even if the level is not top-notch, it is impressive to see the impact of the 1995 born big guy on both ends of the court. His defensive rebounding is good but still improvable and he is also a nice outlook passer
There isn't much video to find of Poeltl online, so let's go with this dunk.
Poeltl wrapped up a string of visits to America the first week of February. He visited Utah two weekends ago, tripped to Berkeley mid-week to watch last week's Cal-Stanfurd game, and wrapped up matters with Arizona last weekend. He will make his decision near the end of February.
Also, for those wondering how Diallo and Rorie are doing in their senior seasons...
Big win by 18-2 @chs_phantoms over Cantwell. @coachmiddlebrks tm led by Cal-signee Idrissa Diallo (7 blocks) & offeree Lucas Siewert (5 3's)
— Cal Rivals (@CalRivals) February 7, 2014
Rorie starts, helps propel No. 6 Abes over Falcons: Ahmaad Rorie and Armond Davis were both in the starting... http://t.co/dFxSffgsAO
— Tacoma WA Journal (@tacomawajournal) January 30, 2014
They both seem to be doing quite well for themselves.
