Cal Basketball Recruiting: Ira Lee lists Bears in final five

UPDATE: It’s now five schools. Cal is alive with Arizona, Oregon, Texas and Maryland for Ira Lee.

Ira Lee, a 4-star forward from Napa (Ca.), has trimmed his list to nine schools and Cal has made the cut.

It does not come as a surprise that the Bears made his final nine, as Cal seems to be a front-runner, along with Arizona, for his commitment.

Speaking of Arizona, our friends over at Arizona Desert Swarm interviewed Lee and here is an excerpt which covers the Wildcats and the Bears.

In terms of what attracts him to the program, Lee listed three things:

"One, I was born there. Two, Coach Miller is a great coach. Three, Aaron (Gordon), Stanley (Johnson), Solomon (Hill); those dudes are my big brothers and are always in my ear about Arizona."

While UA has former players encouraging him, Lee has two teammates, Jemarl Baker and Juhwan Harris-Dyson, already committed to California. He said they are constantly telling him he should come join them in Berkeley.

"Coach Cuonzo [Martin], they offered me my freshman year too along with Arizona," Lee explained. "Same thing. I’ll come in and be the all-around versatile forward. I gotta do it all. I gotta rebound, score and get my teammates going. That’s what they’re pitching too. Two of my AAU teammates have committed to them so I have a little pressure to go there too."

Arizona and Cal are certainly not the only two competing for Lee, as he included three other Pac-12 schools (USC, Oregon, Oregon State) to go along with Kansas, Texas, Maryland and Georgia Tech.

I’m constantly giving props to the coaching staff for putting in the recruiting work, but it appears Baker and Harris-Dyson are putting in a shift as well. We’ll see if they can convince their AAU teammate to join them at Haas Pavilion for the 2017 season.

Here is a new highlight video of Lee to get you even more excited about him potentially playing for Cal.

Go Bears!