Yuat Alok

Alok was born on January 1st, 1997, in Kenya, the second youngest of four children and one of sons of Aluel Deng. Alok’s family was Christian and he was brought up with this faith.

Alok started playing basketball when he was 14, and the Lakers were his favorite team when he was growing up. Few weeks after he was born, Yuat's mother, Aluel Deng, moved with him and his siblings to Kakuma, Kenya to escape the violence of the Second Sudanese Civil War. Almost a decade after moving to Kenya, the United Nations granted an appeal to move the refugee family to Auckland, New Zealand in 2005. Yuat became accustomed to his new lifestyle and learned to speak fluent English. He began playing basketball in his first year of high school and became a member of the New Zealand Breakers academy.[1] In the 2014–15 season, Alok played for the Breakers in the National Basketball League (NBL) as a development player.[2] before again he moved to the United States on a scholarship for his years of high school in order to play for Impact Academy in Sarasota, Florida. He was especially fond of New Zealand, which he considered a loving place and where some of his best childhood memories were made. Yuat began to play basketball seriously while living in New Zealand. Alok and his cousins would play videos of NBA games to study and try in the playground.

August 2014, he appeared in games during the 2014–15 NBL season and was a member of the New Zealand Breakers NBL championship-winning squad. [3]

As a freshman and sophomore, Alok played college basketball at Chipola College, where he was a second-team All-Panhandle Conference selection both years. As a sophomore, he averaged 12.3 points and seven rebounds per game.[4]

For his junior season, he transferred NCAA Division I program TCU, choosing the Horned Frogs over Baylor, Florida and USC. Being drawn there because head coach Jamie Dixon had previously coached his friend and countryman Steven Adams. Alok was ranked as the #1 top junior college recruit in the country by JucoRecruiting.com.[5] He played 10 games for TCU, averaging 3.3 points and 2.5 rebounds in 13.1 minutes per game, before suffering a season-ending hand injury. On 17 January 2019, Alok transferred to UCF.[6][7] In December 2019, as he was set to debut for UCF, he was ruled ineligible for the remainder of the season. Alok moved to New Mexico State as a graduate transfer.[8]

• UCF Knights bio
• NM State's bio