Utah Men’s Basketball team adds Novak Topalovic as a grad transfer from Idaho State

Well, I was wondering a few days ago what may happen to the scholarship that Chris Seeley left open with his transfer, today we got that answer. The Utes added Novak Topalovic, a 7-feet tall center grad transfer from Idaho State. Topalovic was being looked at by other Pac-12 and Power 5 conference schools, but ultimatley Utah won out in the end.

This is a nice get for the Utes, who look to be pretty young next year, with a big influx of freshmen and the loss of four seniors. Having an upper classman that you can plug in, along with Jayce Johnson, should hopefully keep the Utes mature in the middle of the floor. Rebounding was an issue for the Utes this past season, and that wasn’t Collette’s biggest strength, so hopefully Topalovic can help clean up the defensive boards. Hopefully he can come in and fill a role that David Collette leaves open with his graduation. He averaged just over 10 points per game, and almost 7 boards per game, which are some nice numbers for the big guy.

Here’s a bit more about Topalovic from UtahUtes.com:

Topalovic is coming off a 2017-18 campaign where started in all 30 games for the Bengals, averaging 10.7 points and 6.8 rebounds per contest. He ranked seventh in the Big Sky Conference with his 6.8 boards, while also ranking among the league’s best in field goal percentage (11^th, .528) and blocked shots (7^th, 1.1).

As a sophomore at ISU, Topalovic averaged 10.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, while notching four double-doubles on the season and shooting a team-best .659 field goal percentage during Big Sky play.