Utah males’s basketball head coach Craig Smith talks to his gamers because the crew opens camp with observe within the Huntsman Basketball Facility in Salt Lake Metropolis on Sept. 26, 2022. Smith’s crew bought a dedication from Turkish ahead Karahan Efeoglu on Tuesday. Scott G Winterton, Deseret Information
Craig Smith added one other title to this yr’s Utah recruiting class on Tuesday, as Turkish ahead Karahan Efeoglu introduced his dedication to the Utes program on social media.
With Efeoglu’s dedication, the Utes have crammed their full allotment of scholarships for the primary time beneath Smith, who’s heading into his third season at Utah.
That dedication caught the eye of former Utah Jazz heart Mehmet Okur, who additionally hails from Turkey. Okur responded to Efeoglu’s Instagram submit, saying, “Utah ⭐️.”
Efeoglu is a 6-foot-8 energy ahead who performed for the Anadolu Efes Underneath-19 crew final season. He averaged 15.7 factors, 6.6 rebounds and three.6 assists per recreation in 30.0 minutes per contest, based on Eurobasket.com.
He most just lately performed within the U19 World Cup, averaging 11.6 factors and 4.9 rebounds per recreation whereas taking pictures 47.1% from the sphere and 44% from 3-point vary for Turkey.
Efeoglu’s greatest efficiency on the World Cup got here in a quarterfinal win over Canada, when he scored 27 factors and added six rebounds, one help and a blocked shot. He made 11 of 16 pictures from the sphere, together with 6 of 8 from 3-point vary, in a win that helped Turkey end third within the match.
Efeoglu is the sixth member of Utah’s 2023 recruiting class.
He joins former Salt Lake Neighborhood School guard Hunter Erickson and former Timpview Excessive energy ahead Jake Wahlin, together with a trio of Division I transfers — level guard Deivon Smith (most just lately at Georgia Tech), small ahead Cole Bajema (Washington) and heart Lawson Lovering (Colorado).