Amid the frenzy of excited chatter and blinding camera lights that consumed San Diego State’s locker room at the NCAA Tournament Final Four, Aguek Arop was a beacon of stillness.

Days before playing in the biggest basketball game of his life, Arop, the fifth-year senior described by his Aztecs teammates and coaches as the team’s “anchor,” recalled a time when he felt rootless. 

Sitting at his locker deep inside the bowels of NRG Stadium, Arop pulled out his phone and opened up a decade-old photo. A toddler version of himself, wearing a gray shirt and surrounded by seven of his eight siblings, stared back at him. It is the first Arop family photo taken on American soil, and it was taken in Houston — the city he returned to this weekend as part of San Diego State’s Final Four team, in what he calls a “full-circle moment.” 

Arop was barely a year old when he and his family fled Sudan as political refugees, relocating to a refugee camp in Egypt and then to the United States when he was 4, in 2003. Before they eventually settled in Nebraska, Arop spent the first three years of his life in Houston. 

So when he takes the court on Saturday for San Diego State’s regional semifinal game against Florida Atlantic, that journey will be front of mind. 

“It would have to be for my family, especially my parents,” Arop said. “The sacrifices they’ve made and knowing this is where it all started, and knowing they left everything, came to a foreign land with a foreign language and were willing to sacrifice all that just for the opportunity for their children to have a better life. So being back here in Houston, I can't help but think about my parents.” 

Arop has come a long way since then. He blossomed into a promising high school basketball recruit who was Nebraska’s Gatorade Player of the Year. But injuries requiring two surgeries in his first two seasons at San Diego State almost caused him to quit basketball for good.

At the urging of Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher, Arop stuck it out and remained on the team. After all, he knows people — including his own family — who have been through much worse. 

Arop’s backstory affords him a unique sense of perspective; however, he doesn’t use that to minimize the hardships others have endured. He gestured around the locker room at some of his teammates: center Nathan Mensah, guard Lamont Butler and guard Matt Bradley. If there’s anything Arop’s life has taught him, it’s that sacrifice is sacrifice. 

“We've all been through our own trials and tribulations,” Arop said. “The old saying is, ‘What doesn't break you makes you stronger,’ but I think it's having the right people around you that makes you stronger. So all these guys have picked me up when I've been down. Same with Lamont. Same with Matt, Nate. So with everything, I want to play hard for them.” 

The joy and pain of basketball

Arop was born sixth in a family of nine children, with six brothers and two sisters. He was too young to remember the details of the harrowing conditions that prompted his family to leave South Sudan, which gained its independence from Sudan in 2011. But family members have told him stories of kidnappings and rampant killings during the country’s second civil war. 

His mom, Akueliny Deng, and dad, Arop Ajang, sought a safer life for their kids. After a few years spent in Egypt, they found it in the U.S. 

Arop’s memories of that time are fuzzy. Most people’s first impression of Houston is its heat and humidity, but considering Arop’s family had arrived from the deserts of Egypt, they were unfazed. He was more shocked by his first snowfall, experienced years later in Omaha. 

When Arop was in preschool in Houston, he needed to use the restroom but didn’t know enough English to vocalize his request. Administrators had to call his older brother down to the school to translate. Some people had trouble pronouncing his first name, which led to his nickname, AG. 

But by the time the family moved in 2006 to Omaha, which has one of the largest Sudanese populations outside of Africa, Arop felt assimilated into American life. And that’s when he fell in love with basketball. 

In fourth grade, some friends asked Arop to join the school team. That led to him playing for a select basketball program a few years later in middle school, then for a grassroots travel team. He was hooked. 

“It was just pure joy,” Arop said. “It was fun being able to play on the weekend, travel with my best friends. I got to get away from my family and just have all the new experiences that basketball brought me.”

Out of Omaha South High, Arop originally committed to Nebraska, but re-opened his recruitment after the Huskers said they wanted him to attend prep school for a year prior to joining the team. 

So he went to San Diego State instead, where he played in 31 games as a freshman and ranked second on the team in blocks. But he played through a painful hip injury that required surgery after the season to repair a torn labrum. 

After a lengthy rehab process, Arop returned to the court for his sophomore season in 2019-20 but a few months later required another surgery, this time on his shoulder. He was crushed. He felt he had no other choice but to forfeit his scholarship and walk away from basketball, and perhaps college altogether.

“It was just the mental fatigue of getting back to normal, feeling back, feeling like you're catching up with everyone getting back on track and then feeling like you've taken a big step back and being out for months,” Arop said. “That was just the frustration of this, the roller coaster of ups and downs. But I think I was just mentally over it. I was done, drained.” 

He went to Dutcher and told him as much. But the head coach responded, “You don't have to practice in order to play. We know your value.”

“I told him, ‘You don't have to play any more, AG, but you can't leave the team,’” Dutcher said. “You have to be here. You have to be a coach. You have to be on the floor, because you're so important to the team with your messages, your ability to communicate. And so he came back and he was basically just passing, maybe doing some defense in a drill occasionally. And I was just hoping that he would feel good enough and miss it enough that he'd come back.” 

Eventually, Arop did. If he felt up to it, he practiced. If he didn’t, he studied the game plan, rode the exercise bike and instructed his teammates verbally from the sideline. He jokes that he was “a glorified manager,” but it was in that capacity that he realized he fell back in love with the game. 

The belief that his coaches and teammates had in him to still contribute, Arop said, “meant the world to me.” 

For the past three seasons, Arop has played with the permission to limit his physical participation as needed. He’s worked with Aztecs strength coaches to redefine his body, losing weight and gaining muscle in order to protect himself from further injury. 

Arop’s teammates understand and are fully committed to supporting him, forward Keshad Johnson said. 

“He's just an all-around, stand-up guy,” Johnson said. “You know what he stands for. He stands for positivity. He stands for brotherhood and all of that. He’s just like the anchor of the team, for real. He's the heart of the team.” 

This season, Arop is team captain and played in 35 of 37 games entering Saturday. He orchestrated a players-only meeting that sparked San Diego State’s midseason turnaround following a loss to Nevada. In the team’s first four NCAA Tournament games, he averaged 17.5 minutes, 4.5 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 assists off the bench. 

“At the end of the day, when he's not practicing or he is practicing, he's always got a pulse on what's going on,” Aztecs assistant coach Chris Acker said. “I think it's just been refreshing to see that a guy that has given everything to the program and sacrificed so much, is getting to reap the benefits of accomplishing something so special this time of year.” 

U.S. citizenship and a desire to give back

San Diego State finished the 2021-22 season in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, with Arop ranked as the No. 10 offensive rebounder in the Mountain West. 

But Arop was happier about what happened after the season: Two months after he graduated, he finally got his U.S. citizenship with his mother at his side. He still beams when he talks about it. 

“Oh, man, it was special,” he said. “I've always felt American because I've been here since I was four, but I didn't realize how good it would feel once I got the piece of paper and swore my allegiance to the country. Just because, you know, we came to America for this opportunity to have a better life, and I've been presented with that with all the people that have helped me. No matter the circumstances, there's always opportunity. I believe I'm a perfect example of that just coming from where I come from.”  

Although last July marked nearly 20 years since Arop arrived in the U.S., logistical and legal complications kept him from obtaining his citizenship earlier. Only his youngest brother was born in the U.S. and thus automatically became a citizen. One of his older brothers got in trouble before he was afforded the legal protections of citizenship and was deported back to South Sudan, but Arop’s parents and two other brothers have finalized their citizenship as well. 

Arop’s undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies included a component of criminal justice, and he is currently earning a master’s degree in homeland security. 

“It intrigues me being able to protect,” he said. “I’ve always felt like I wanted to do good and give back, and so it’s knowing I'm doing something for a country that has done so much for me.”  

Three of Arop’s brothers flew to Louisville to watch him play in San Diego State’s two South Region games last weekend. They showed up at the arena wearing matching shirts that read, “Omaha for Aztecs.” After San Diego State beat Creighton in the Elite Eight, Arop paraded around the confetti-strewn court with his nephew in his arms. 

All of Arop’s siblings, except for the one brother who remains overseas, are planning to attend the Final Four. So are his parents. It will be the first time that his whole family watches him play together, in person. 

Arop still has love for his homeland. His U.S. passport arrived two weeks ago, and he plans to return to South Sudan this summer to visit his brother and to participate in a camp run by ROSS Leaders, a non-profit funded in part by Los Angeles Lakers forward Wenyen Gabriel. 

Immigrants often describe their sense of identity as complicated. But Arop has found a way to mesh his past and present. He quotes lyrics from a South Sudanese song, translated from the Dinka language: My grandparents, all they knew was war. My parents, all they knew was war. All I know is war.

“But it’s also looking forward to the future of when there will be peace in South Sudan,” Arop explained. “So that’s that whole mission, that’s what we’re trying to do now. We’re on the way there.”