Monday was a big day for the Colorado State men’s basketball program.
Coming off of a fruitful week in which the Rams locked down four transfer commitments for the upcoming season, Nikola Djapa, a 7-foot, 230-pound forward out of Serbia, became the most recent pledge for the Green & Gold.
Djapa played his freshman season at Long Island University, where he averaged 6.1 points and 5.6 rebounds over 29 games. He comes to Fort Collins with three years of eligibility remaining.
Diving into the numbers, it’s unsurprising that the big man from Belgrade, Serbia had a bit of a slow start to his career. 10 of his first 11 appearances at the D1 level were either true road games or neutral site matchups. But right around mid December of last year, he really started to flash his potential.
Djapa recorded the first double-double of his career against UMASS-Lowell on Dec. 12, finishing with 15 points and 10 rebounds in a losing effort for the Sharks. In total he had three double-doubles for the season. His highest scoring output, though, was a 19-point performance against FDU on Feb. 01.
Watching Djapa on film, the first thing that stands out is how well he moves for a player with that kind of size. The biggest takeaway, however, is that he’s really versatile in terms of his skillset.
Djapa is a gifted passer, a confident jump shooter and he isn’t afraid to put the ball on the floor and drive either. Offensively he seems like a player that should be a really nice fit in Niko Medved’s Princeton offense, particularly with the way the Rams love to space the floor with their bigs.
The type of player that you can post up down low or have set a screen at the top of the key, before either rolling to the rim or popping out behind the arc for a kickback, Djapa is the type of versatile forward that Niko Medved covets. The difference between him and some of the previous guys that have come through the system obviously is that Djapa has legitimate NBA size.
In addition to his collegiate experience, Djapa plays for the Serbian national team. He also is a two-time Junior Adriatic League champion.
