Terrence Johnson's persistence paying off with Alonzo Sule

Terrence Johnson remembers pacing up and down Gym 101 of the Jowers Center for an hour and a half. He was racing against the clock, yet getting nowhere.

He truly thought Alonzo Sule wasn’t coming to Texas State.

Sule’s recruitment by the Bobcats began the same way hundreds of other athletes try to get noticed by Texas State — he sent Johnson an email. But Sule, a senior at Katy Cinco Ranch at the time, had a tie to Johnson.

Sule and his high school teammate, Jay Jay Chandler — now a senior guard at Texas A&M — were both members of the Texas Pro Youth Basketball Club. Johnson was the head coach of the club’s 17U team before becoming an assistant coach on Danny Kaspar’s staff at Texas State in 2015. Jay Jay’s father, John Chandler, was the head coach of the 16U team and had worked with Nijal Pearson and Marlin Davis at the club level, both of whom were on the Bobcats’ roster during the 2016-17 season.

“I'm not gonna say I ignored (the email). I just called John Chandler, asked him a little bit about him,” Johnson said. “He said (Sule) was a great kid, said if he didn't get anything, he'll be playing with Texas Pro as an unsigned senior.”

Sule averaged 10.8 points and 7.2 rebounds per game as a senior and, along with Jay Jay, helped Cinco Ranch earn the District 19-6A championship. Johnson went to watch Sule play in person in April 2017. The coach was also keeping an eye on a fellow Texas Pro big man Kevin Obanor. Kaspar was interested in both, but thought he’d only have room on the roster for one or the other.

Obanor, who now plays for Oral Roberts, was more ready to make an immediate impact at the college level. Sule had a good motor and could run the floor well. But standing at 6-foot-7 and 190 pounds as a 17-year-old, Sule would be more of a long-term project to develop.

The Bobcats already had Immanuel King and Eric Terry filling out their rotation at the center position. Kaspar and Johnson thought they could redshirt Sule to develop his physical frame and let him learn to harness his raw athleticism backing up Terry off the bench after King graduated.

Alonzo and his mother, Pasima Sule, took an unofficial visit to Texas State at the end of the spring semester. Johnson and Kaspar were impressed by both and offered Alonzo a scholarship. Alonzo was sold — the only other places he was getting real interest from was the Colorado School of Mines at the NCAA Division II level and a prep school on the east coast.

“I liked the players, I liked my teammates,” Alonzo said. “You know, I just liked the atmosphere, I felt comfortable. I felt like this is a place that I would enjoy being at.”

Pasima, a former track athlete for Grambling State, wasn’t convinced, though. Three days after the Sules visited, Johnson and Kaspar hadn’t heard anything back from them. When Johnson called Alonzo to find out why, he said his mother didn’t think Texas State was the right fit for him, academically.

Johnson decided to contact Pasima directly.

“The things that she had heard was it was a party school and so on and so forth. She was just going off of some of the things she had heard in the past,” Johnson said. “She's very stern and she just basically said, ‘Coach T.J., I'm not really interested in Alonzo playing basketball. I'm interested in him getting his education, being in a safe and supportive environment. I'm interested in him being around people that are gonna help him develop as a man.’

“She's like, ‘I've participated in college athletics, I know what it's about.’”

Johnson couldn’t change her mind. He told Kaspar it didn’t look like Alonzo was coming. Kaspar was baffled. It didn’t sit right with him that he was potentially going to lose a recruit to a D2 school.

Texas State signed Lamar State-Port Arthur transfer forward Petar Radojicic to round out its recruiting class in June. But a month later, Radojicic flipped his commitment to St. Mary’s. The Bobcats suddenly had a spot open for a big man again.

Kaspar told Johnson they needed to land Alonzo, and soon — school was starting back up in just a couple weeks. Johnson reached out to John Chandler to see if Alonzo was still interested. Chandler said that he was, but that Alonzo would have to get his mom on board.

“Alonzo decides to call me, you can just hear his voice cracking,” Johnson said. “He was disappointed, he was almost in tears that his mom had told him no. You know, in his culture, you don't ask why. If the answer's no, it's no.”

Chandler and Johnson went to work trying to convince Pasima that Texas State was the right place for Alonzo. It led to an hour and a half phone call between Johnson and Pasima, with the coach frantically walking up and down Gym 101.

Pasima gave Johnson an assignment. She wanted to know the graduation rate of the men’s basketball program since Kaspar became the head coach at Texas State in 2013. She wanted to know the graduation rate of Stephen F. Austin’s men’s basketball program from when Kaspar was the head coach there from 2000-13. She wanted to know the graduation rate of all athletes at Texas State. She wanted the school's tuition breakdown — every last cent of it. She wanted all the details of where Alonzo would be housed and what his meal plan would be. She wanted it all on paper and she wanted it the next day.

Johnson and Kaspar obliged. Pasima reviewed everything they sent and called Johnson again around 7 p.m. the next day. They talked for another 30 minutes. Near the end of the conversation, she asked when new student orientation was.

“I started to feel a little bit better when she asked about that,” Johnson said.

Alonzo, though, couldn’t make the July 17-18 orientation. He already had a trip scheduled to visit his father in Canada.

Kaspar said he could pull some strings to allow Alonzo to take orientation online. Finally, Pasima gave her blessing.

“T.J. was talking to my mom, Jay Jay's dad was talking to my mom and they were really just persistent on me coming to Texas State,” Alonzo said. “I feel like that right there, just those voices (convinced her) and she was like, ‘OK.’”

It’s all worked out for the forward. “Zo,” as the team calls him, said he’s since bulked up to 225 pounds — a product of redshirting his first year. The redshirt junior is averaging 7.9 points and 3.2 rebounds this season, his first as a full-time starter for the maroon and gold. He’ll graduate from the school with a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems. 

Johnson, now the interim head coach of the Bobcats, thinks Alonzo could be the most impactful big man to come through the program since two-time All-Sun Belt Conference selection Emani Gant (2013-16).

“I think (Alonzo's) infectious attitude, how he comes and lifts people up almost on the daily, just how mature and how reliable he is, he's a great teammate,” Johnson said.

Johnson and Alonzo will take the floor at Strahan Arena this weekend to face Little Rock in a back-to-back series, both Friday and Saturday’s games tipping off at 4 p.m.