European Prospects

After having spent several seasons with the Norwegian team Asker Aliens, the 1990 born forward decided to move over the Atlantic Ocean and play College Basketball. Aksel Bolin spoke to europeanprospects.com these days about his choice and what we can expect from him in the next years.

The 2m02 tall player, who was originally born in Rasunda (Sweden), played with the different youth national teams of Norway without producing exceptional statistics over the years. In 2010, during the U20 European Championship of division B, he finished with his best numbers though: 11.3ppg, 5.4rpg and 34.6% from behind the arc. Bolin sees himself mainly as a shooter who is able to use his height well when playing the SF or even the SG position. After a period where he worked really hard during his youth, Bolin even stopped to play Basketball for six years but is now back at full force to make the next step with the Huskies.

I see my development as a basketball player for the next 4 years going the right way. Here, I get to practice and lift more weights than ever before and get good experience playing against good players.

Coming from a country where Basketball is far from being a major event, the decision to move to the United States was probably not too difficult. Aksel explained us why he did this choice.

I chose to play NCAA basketball because I can combine getting an education and play basketball on a higher level than in Norway. I had a lot of connections through coaches in Norway. My coach and a couple of us players took a trip over in April/May and visited a couple of schools together with Northern Illinois. I talked to many different schools in the US, but didn’t get to visit everyone. But I am very happy with my choice of going to Northern Illinois.

Coming from a Basketball family and giving Gordon Hayward as his favorite player, the Norwegian has his head on his shoulders but still needs to find out what he wants to do in the future.

My major is probably Business, but I am still not sure. They got a good business program going here at NIU so I was thinking why not try it.

After the first five games of the season, he averages 11.3 minutes on the court to score 3.8ppg while he is still looking for his shot (3/10 FGs). We wish Aksel good luck with his University career, both in Basketball and in his education.