Bol Bol, one of the top big men in the Class of 2018, has committed to Oregon.
Bol chose the Ducks over Kentucky:
I would like To thank everyone who recruited me. I had a tough decision to make. Today I would like to announce I have committed to Oregon https://t.co/kWOmpiKTt8 pic.twitter.com/cdyMrp5JQg
— Bol Bol (@bolmanutebol) November 20, 2017
Here is part of Bol’s explanation for picking Oregon:
About a week after I made my official visit to Eugene, I knew that that was where I wanted to go.
Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a hard decision. It came down to Oregon and Kentucky — which is kind of funny that it was those two schools. Because when I was a kid, after my family moved to Kansas, everyone on my AAU teams and school teams was a Jayhawks fan. As someone who likes to do his own thing — and yeah, troll a little bit — I always rooted for Kentucky. In Kansas, cheering for the Wildcats is like against the law. So I started telling telling people that I was cheering for Kentucky because I wanted to go to school there. Then when I got older, as a recruit, I really liked how Coach Calipari went about developing young players. That speaks for itself. Kentucky had been in my mind my whole life, so it was a little mind-blowing to me that I was offered an opportunity to be a Wildcat.
Oregon was just the opposite, in a way. I didn’t know much about the school until I started getting recruited by Oregon’s assistant coach, Tony Stubblefield. And then later by Coach Altman. Before that, I knew they had a lot of jerseys, a lot of different shoe combinations, but that was about it. But it was really those first few meetings with Coach Stubblefield that impressed me the most. He was accessible. He got to know me. He was really real with me.
And he was honest about the fact that Oregon has never really gotten a top recruit when it was between the Kentuckys and Dukes. He didn’t shy away from that. What he did was lay out the vision they had for me.
