AROP’S BUDDY PAL JOINS AZTECS
Another of Omaha’s South Sudanese stars picks SDSU
A few weeks after a basketball player from Omaha’s South Sudanese community finished a celebrated career at San Diego State, the Aztecs are about to get another.
Jokrol “Jay” Pal, a 6foot-9 graduate transfer from Campbell University with one year of eligibility, committed to SDSU on Thursday with a big assist from Aguek “AG” Arop, who in April became the first Nebraskan to play in the Final Four in 37 years.
Pal and Arop have known each other since middle school, part of the vibrant South Sudanese community in that part of Nebraska. Their parents worked together. They attended rival high schools (Omaha Central and Omaha South, respectively) but both spent a postgrad year at The Skill Factory prep academy in Atlanta.
“We go way back,” Pal said. “That relationship is a big reason why I’m choosing San Diego State. I went out there on my visit, and a lot of people already knew I knew AG. I felt welcome there, already part of the family. He’s been telling me a lot about the school, even before they began recruiting me.”
They are different players because, well, it’s hard to compare Pal’s game to anybody. He is 6-9 but only 193 pounds, operating more as a wing than the low post his height would indicate. He can handle the ball, shoot step-back 3s, slash from the perimeter and score at the rim with his length and athleticism. He also blocks shots (1.5 per game last season), can guard all five positions and runs the floor.
Campbell listed him as a forward. Jacksonville State, his previous Division I stop, called him a guard/forward. Others have labeled him a guard.
“I like to call myself positionless,” Pal said. “You can play me at any position. I do just a lot of everything. They watched a lot of film on me
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showed me how I fit into the system. It really made a lot of sense. The coaching staff just believes in me and how I can help a team that’s already been winning. I just fell in love with it.”
NESN.com recently ranked Pal in its top 25 transfers still available, noting that he “really found his rhythm with the Fighting Camels down the stretch” and “could be the steal of the portal based on his build and potential.”
His journey to SDSU is not as linear as Arop, who came from The Skill Factory and stayed five years, opting to return for his COVID season while pursuing a graduate degree.
After a year in Atlanta, Pal spent a season at Clarendon Community College in a tiny town in the Texas Panhandle. Then it was off to Jacksonville State in Florida for two seasons, starting 21 games in the first but only one in the second on a team that won 21 games and reached the NCAA Tournament. Then, the Big South Conference’s Campbell in Buies Creek, N.C.
He started 32 games for the Fighting Camels, averaging 12.3 points and 6.9 rebounds while shooting 58 percent overall and 73.4 percent from the line. He improved as the season progressed, averaging 17.5 points over his final eight games (with four double-doubles) and 19.5 in the Big South tournament.
He had 23 points, 11 rebounds, three assists and three blocks in a quarterfinal win against Longwood. He had 26 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and two blocks in the
championship game against UNC Asheville, a 77-73 loss that would have sent the 16-18 Camels to the NCAA Tournament. Now, the Aztecs.
“Just to experience something bigger, you know?” Pal said of his reason for leaving Campbell. “I knew I could play at a higher level and I took the opportunity to do it. I just loved it as soon as I got out there (to SDSU) and didn’t want to visit anywhere else.”
Pal becomes, incredibly, the third player from Omaha Central High’s 2017-18 team to transfer this spring to a program that reached at least the second round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. John Tonje went from Colorado State to Misand
souri. Latrell Wrightsell Jr., who averaged 16.3 points and was an all-Big West selection for Cal State Fullerton, is headed to Alabama.
SDSU, which has become a popular destination for long, athletic, versatile guards/ wings/forwards/whatever, will welcome Pal’s unique skillset. One thing that may have to change, however, is his jersey number.
He wore No. 15 at Campbell. That was Kawhi Leonard’s number at SDSU, and it now hangs in the Viejas Arena rafters.
It isn’t officially retired, which gets tricky because there are only 36 possible numbers that college rules allow players to wear. But no one has worn No. 15 since, and the expectation, you’d think, is that no one will.
Pal is SDSU’s second transfer this spring, joining USC guard Reese Dixon-Waters. That gives the Aztecs 11 scholarship players for 2023-24, assuming Lamont Butler and Jaedon LeDee both withdraw from the NBA Draft by May 31. Coach Brian Dutcher typically has not used all 13 available, preferring to go with 12, but that still leaves room for at least one more transfer this spring.
You’d presume that would be a rim-protecting low post to replace two-time Mountain West defensive player of the year Nathan Mensah, but the transfer portal, which closed May 11, is beginning to thin out.
Mission Hills High alum (and Arizona State transfer) Warren Washington is headed to Texas Tech, presumably for an NIL payment well into six figures. Another target, 6-9 Zuby Ejiofor from Kansas, had scheduled a May 28 visit to SDSU but committed to St. John’s and coach Rick Pitino earlier this week.
Two West Coast possibilities are a pair of 7-footers from Senegal. San Jose State’s Ibrahima Diallo helped the Spartans to a 21-win season under Mountain West coach of the year Tim Miles, leading the conference in blocks at 1.7 per game (Mensah averaged 1.6). Another last-minute entry in the portal is Washington State freshman Adrame Diongue, a four-star prep prospect ranked No. 43 nationally by ESPN who picked the Cougars over Kansas and Illinois. He played sparingly last season but showed flashes of potential with his length and athleticism.