Meet the Freshmen: Pacific’s Kaleb Warner

Winning will be hard to come by for the Pacific Tigers, who lost 7 seniors and 2 transfers, including seven of their eight top scorers from last years squad.  The Tigers only return 16.6% of their minutes from last season and only 15.5% of their points.

One player who will look to add a different dimension to the team as a long, athletic wing is 6’6 incoming freshman Kaleb Warner.

At Mercer Island High School

Warner averaged 16.0 PPG and 8.1 RPG as a junior in 2012-13 at Mercer, and he finished his senior season ranked by ESPN as the 7th best player in the state of Washington and the 68th best small forward in the nation.

During his senior season he was named a member of the Washington Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association’s 3A All-State team after averaging 14.4 points per game to lead his team in scoring.  He was also one of the candidates from the state of Washington for the McDonald’s All-American game.

Warner also was an AAU teammate of 2014 Pacific signee Jacob Lampkin, so it should be nice to see the two players reuinte in Stockton.

Impact at Pacific

With a developing offensive skillset, look for Warner to come in and be a defensive stopper with his athleticism with room for growth on the offensive end.  If he is able to consistently knock down jump shots, look for defenses to play him tight, allowing him to use his quickness to drive to the basket.  

Warner could form a decent backcourt with newcomers Alec Kobre, D.J. Ursery and Dulani Robinson, to go with returners T.J. Wallace and David Taylor.

With Wallace the only lock for a starting spot among that group, there is no reason to believe that Warner won’t be able to show Coach Verlin enough to give him the starting nod from day 1.