Hoops: Eighth-Grader Koprivica, Nearly 7-Feet, Turning Heads

*, Balsa

Wherever he goes, Balsa Koprivica turns heads
.
When he ducks through a doorway at University School. When he shops with his mother at Publix. And especially now, when he steps onto high school basketball courts across South Florida, everyone takes notice.
For Koprivica, all the attention and gawking has become as normal as lacing up his size-16 sneakers. The 6-foot-11, 240-pound eighth-grader, a native of Serbia, is playing varsity hoops in his first season of high school ball. The 14-year old is ranked by Future150.com as the No. 7 prospect in the Class of 2019, and has already heard from college programs like Ohio State, Baylor, Miami and Georgia Tech.
Despite playing this season against kids up to four years his senior, Koprivica averages 11 points and seven rebounds a game. He scored 15 points in a recent win over North Broward Prep, helping the Suns improve to 7-6.
"I think that's something, as his high school coach, that I tend to forget, that he's still an eighth-grader, he's still 14 years old," University School coach Adrian Sosa said. "He's going up against 18- and 19-year-olds. The things that we expect, he has it. You just have to keep telling yourself, 'He's 14.' He's going to be playing against these guys for five more years."
And Koprivica doesn't play like a typical 7-footer, stationing his big body only under the basket to cherry-pick rebounds and put-backs. Instead he's drawn on his European background and hoops pedigree to develop a versatile offensive arsenal. His father, Slavisa Koprivica, played power forward professionally in Europe, and Balsa said he'd like to take his dad's shooting and add to that a strong low-post game.
Sosa remembered the first time he watched Koprivica play two years ago, as a fresh-faced middle-schooler. Koprivica could post up on the block and shoot from the elbow. Even at 6-foot-3, he could handle the ball and drive to the rim.
"Eight inches later, he doesn't do it as much — but he can," Sosa said. "We don't want to limit him because of his height to just a post-up player. If he can step out and he can shoot, put it on the floor, rebound, one or two dribbles and outlet, he's just helping the team."
Koprivica and his mother, Tanja Cavic, immigrated to the United States from Belgrade, Serbia in June 2012, right after Balsa finished fifth grade. Cavic won a green card through the American embassy in 2009 and traveled with Balsa to New York and Chicago before moving permanently in 2012 to South Florida.