Recruiting Report: Puka Nacua (2019)
One of Utah’s best football players, Puka Nacua, also happens to be one of the state’s best hoopsters.
The 6-foot-2 Orem guard has five Division I football offers to his name, and says it’s likely he’ll pursue that at the next level. But if his basketball opportunities can match the football ones, he wouldn’t rule out hoops at the next level.
Playing with Exum Elite this past spring and summer helped with his basketball recruiting.
“It’s been good, there’s been a lot of smaller schools like UC-Davis, UC-Irvine that have talked to me, and BYU and Utah have talked to me about basketball. But everyone knows that football is my thing right now,” said Nacua,
“I definitely would consider playing basketball, if the offer was at the same level as Division I that I already have.”
Puka, a wide-receiver on the gridiron, has football offers from BYU, Utah, Arizona, Utah State and Nevada.
He did mention that two schools have approached him about possibly playing both sports, football and basketball, which is also something Nacua says he’ll consider.
“BYU and Utah, I’ve talked to some of their basketball coaches about if I were to go there for football, they’d offer me to play basketball, too,” he said.
“I think that would be cool, but I don’t know if my body would be able to handle that.”
Utah’s 9th-ranked 2019 (for basketball), Nacua defined his skill-set to PHID, and what it is that makes him so dominant on the hardwood.
“I’d definitely say that I love to score the ball inside the paint. And I like to be a playmaker and get my teammates the ball,” said Nacua. “I’m best at passing the ball and getting my teammates into situations where they score, that’s something that I pride myself in.”
Now, with his junior season at Orem in full swing, he says things are starting to click for the Tigers.
“Things have been going pretty good. We struggled a little bit our first game, but we’ve been good since. We’re still trying to figure out our identity a bit,” said Nacua.
“I’d say we can definitely win state, and that’s the goal. Once things start clicking we’ll be ready to go come playoff time.”