Ags add player with baggage
Ex-SJSU guard Brown arrives a year after arrest on robbery charge
LAS CRUCES — New Mexico State men’s basketball has added junior college transfer Terrell Brown, a former San Jose State player who was dismissed for his alleged involvement in a crime.
Brown, a 6-foot-2 guard, is a walk-on enrolled at NMSU. He played last season at City College of San Francisco, where he averaged 15.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game while shooting 50.3 percent from the field and 47.3 percent from 3. He led CCSF to the California Community College Athletic Association championship.
Brown played at San Jose State as a freshman, but was dismissed from the team after he was one of five people arrested in May 2017 for suspicion of robbing a man and using his credit card to buy food at an In-N-Out fastfood restaurant, according to a San Jose Mercury News article. He was dismissed from the Spartans for violating team rules.
According to the Mercury News, Brown and the other suspects were taken into custody by Union City, Calif., police on suspicion of robbery, criminal threats, possession of stolen property and conspiracy to commit a crime. According to Alameda County (Calif.) Court
records, Brown was charged with second degree robbery, assault by means to produce great bodily injury, criminal threats, conspiracy to commit a crime, identity theft — all felonies — and receiving stolen property, a misdemeanor.
According to court records, Brown pleaded not guilty to all charges and the case is still active. The case is scheduled for a pretrial hearing July 31 and a preliminary hearing Aug. 2, records indicate.
“We did extensive background checks on Terrell,” NMSU coach Chris Jans said. “A lot of character references to people who have coached Terrell, people who have taught Terrell, people who have been around Terrell as a person on and off floor. He has elected to be a walk-on for our program. His first day was recent, he had to get cleared academically, but he’s a part of our program. He’s trying to wade through his legal issues that he has and we are certainly monitoring the situation. But as of right now, he is a member of the team and he is a part of the program.
“He has been great throughout this whole process. We really got to know him through the recruiting process in the spring. And we’re just letting it unfold and play out and see where we are at with him.”
Brown averaged 7.2 points, 1.7 assists and 21.6 minutes per game for San Jose State in 2016-17. He made nine starts for the Spartans, eight of those in Mountain West Conference play. Brown scored 17 points with five assists in San Jose State’s 78-68 win over New Mexico on Feb. 4.
Brown led Moreau Catholic High School in Haywood to a California Interscholastic Federation North Coast Section Division III championship in 2016, scoring 23 points with four 3-point baskets in the title game.