Jakob Poeltl’s takeover of Pac-12 basketball started in a dusty file cabinet in the back of his coach’s office. The 7-foot Viennese center arrived in Utah like a typewriter in a computer programming class. Nobody knew how to use him.
So Utes coach Larry Krystkowiak dug out his old playbooks. Basketball’s X’s and O’s of playing with a traditional center are buried in the 1990s, next to CD copies of Shaquille O’Neal’s rap albums.
“You know, it’s a lost art,” Krystkowiak said Wednesday at the Pepsi Center. “There are fewer and fewer throwback centers. And with that, we’re losing some of the skill. A lot of kids grow up, and they’ve never had to throw it to anybody in the post. ‘What do you mean, “Throw it to the big guy”?’ “
Poeltl is 7 feet, 248 pounds of bumpin’ and grindin’, a dominating center in the Patrick Ewing mold. The sophomore might just be an NBA lottery pick.
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And he’s not alone. Between Poeltl, Gonzaga’s Domantas Sabonis and Purdue’s A.J. Hammons, the NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional, which tips off in Denver on Thursday, might have the greatest collection of college big men since the glory days of the Big East Conference.
“I haven’t slept in two days,” Arkansas-Little Rock coach Chris Beard said, as a matchup against Purdue and senior Hammons looms large on his mind. “They’re the biggest team in college basketball. Their size will present challenges.”
The 3-point line crept into college basketball starting in 1980. Over time, it all but ruined the idea, or need, to have a traditional center.
Many college teams use three-guard lineups and go without a traditional post player. The Golden State Warriors — with their wide-open, small-ball, quick-swing, three-heavy attack behind Stephen Curry — are setting the tone for how to win in the NBA.
NCAA Tournament teams are trying to fast break and sharpshoot their way to the Final Four. The three throwback big men playing like classic centers in Denver swim against that tide.
“In my head, that’s what a center does,” said Sabonis, Gonzaga’s 6-11 sophomore post man. “If you’re a center, you have to know how to play in the post.”
The Zags list Sabonis as a power forward, but they’re not fooling anybody. He’s a center by birth, the son of Arvydas Sabonis, the Lithuanian legend who dominated in the paint for the Portland Trailblazers from 1995 to 2003.
“Ever since I was growing up, the big man gets the ball in the post,” said the younger Sabonis, a likely top-15 pick in the NBA draft. “That’s just how it is.”
But that idea is now a radical departure. Purdue lines up the biggest frontcourt in the country, with a shooting guard, two forwards and a center listed as 6-6, 6-8, 6-9 and 7-0, respectively.
“College basketball by nature is smaller now,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “So it’s not your dad’s Big Ten, so to speak.”
Hammons, the Boilermakers’ center, averages 14.9 points and 8.0 rebounds. But Painter, like Utah’s Krystkowiak, had to reimagine how to use a post-up.
“You coach your whole life, and you never have, you know, big guys,” Painter said. “Now we’re fortunate to have a lot of big guys. So you really learn a lot about yourself, learn a lot about your team in terms of trying to coach those guys.”
Poeltl’s footwork is pro-ready, and his free-throw ability (69 percent) can respond to “hack-a-Shaq” defense. Utah’s key, Krystkowiak said, was figuring out how to set up Poeltl in the post.
“I don’t think we knew what we had. We recruited a really athletic kid from Austria,” Krystkowiak said. “This year was breaking into some file cabinets, talking to some people about getting the ball to the bigs.”
The three centers posting up at the Pepsi Center allow their teams unusual advantages. Their ability to rebound — Sabonis is the best, averaging 11.6 per game, but they each lead their team — can help control tempo.
But new conventional wisdom says backcourts win in March. And hot hands will always negate size, especially with the prevalence of the 3-point shot. With Poeltl, Utah slowed down the fast-paced Pac-12 this season and reached the conference championship game, but high-flying Oregon ran by them to win the league title.
“I think you’ve seen that through the years in the NBA with some of those guys that are huge, like Shaq, Sabonis. They were always trying to drag those guys out (away from the basket),” Painter said. “You always watched it, but as a coach you never dealt with it because you never had any size. Now we deal with it. We flip it to them, try to get them the basketball as much as possible.”
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or @nickgroke
Centers of attention
Three of the best centers in the country — the best collection of throwback post players seen in several years — will play in Denver starting Thursday in the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Regional. They all are finalists for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award for the best college center. How they stack up:
JAKOB POELTL, UTAH
Sophomore, 7-0, 248
17.6 points, 9.0 rebounds
A consensus top-10 pick in the NBA draft, Poeltl could sneak into the lottery selections. Was named the Pac-12 player of the year. He was born in Austria, and his name is pronounced “YA-kub PURR-tuhl.”
DOMANTAS SABONIS, GONZAGA
Sophomore, 6-11, 240
17.4 points, 11.6 rebounds
Probably a top-15, maybe top-10, pick in the NBA draft, Sabonis is the son of Hall of Fame center Arvydas Sabonis. Born in Lithuania, he ranked eighth in the nation for rebounds.
A.J. HAMMONS, PURDUE
Senior, 7-0, 250
14.9 points, 8.0 rebounds
A native of Carmel, Ind., Hammons anchors the biggest team in the country. Named the Big Ten’s defensive player of the year, he led them to the conference championship game.
