By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Dandenong-based Red Roo Basketball’s players are making huge bounds on US college courts.
Despite Covid ravaging the US, Michael Jok, Yut Gai, Daniel Akuei and Sebastian Lamonato earned scholarships and are now playing leading roles in their teams’ success.
Jok, originally from Pakenham, has been starring for Dawson Community College for the past 18 months.
His junior college side was recently crowned the Mon-Dak (Montana-North Dakota) conference champion two years in a row, with a 18-2 win record.
The 191-centimetre guard started with Red Roo at 15 years old. Now 20, he’s in a winning US team in the end-of-season March Madness tournament.
The skill level was “real real high”. Fast paced, athletic but enjoyable, he said.
Gai was recently termed by his South Plains College coach as one of the team’s most consistent players.
In his second year, the forward had racked up double-figures in his past three games in what is regarded the best junior college team in the country.
Akuei has paved his way from junior college to the University of West Florida Argonauts. Lamonato graduated from Saginaw Valley State University with an international finance degree.
A proud Red Roo owner, coach and mentor James Kerr says Jok and Gai were “going to another level” as they pitched themselves for potentially senior college scholarships.
“They’re doing amazing right now. Better than you could have imagined.
“There will be a lot of eyes on them. They do two years at ‘juco’ (junior college), and they’ve got to hope for a (college) team to pick them up.
“That’s the pressure.”
It’s taken some sacrifice, saving up in advance for flights, visas and accommodation in the US. Then when they got the call up, they left behind their families and livelihoods to chase their dreams.
“You’re not earning so you’re putting the family in a bit of a quagmire,” Kerr says.
“You’ve got to be fully motivated or you’re not going to do it.”
The players had not been aided by the Australian basketball system, according to Kerr.
Good players have to “pay to play” at the state’s highest levels, meaning talented players like Jok and Gai weren’t being identified by Basketball Victoria, Kerr says.
“If you don’t pay, you don’t play.”
In contrast, the US system attracts and pays for scholarship winners’ sports and academic journeys.
“What are you getting for playing rep ball in Australia? You’re paying registration and the cost of getting to training three nights a week sometimes for a club far away across the city.
“What are you getting out of it? You’re not getting an education, you’re not getting a chance to play for a US college.
“It’s a slim chance. I’d say there’s less than 200 Australian kids get scholarships in America.”
Meanwhile back in Australia, a Red Roo men’s side defeated RMIT Redbacks in a thrilling overtime final at the Ballarat Senior Basketball Tournament.
It was the first time a Sudanese-Australian team had won the 58-year-old tournament.
It comes on top of winning a recent AAU Australia Summer Series national tournament at Dandenong – its first hit-out after not playing for eight months due to Covid lockdown.
Kerr is a big fan of AAU Australia, which is providing an affordable US college pathway for Australian talent like Jok.
Jok himself credits Kerr for helping get him known. “It was hard. My name wasn’t out there because I wasn’t playing at (Victorian) state level.
“When I came to Red Roo in 2015, he told me to stay committed and keep doing it over time.”
