Melbourne United’s Jo Lual-Acuil Jr opens up on his tough formative years and how his family shaped the man he is today
Uprooted from his home aged just 3, Jo Lual-Acuil Jr has been through more than most. But his mother’s work ethic, along with a focus on family, has helped the young Melbourne United centre find success in his adopted country.
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Towering Melbourne United centre Jo Lual-Acuil Jr has seen the best and worst of humanity in his quarter of a century of life.
Aged just 3, Acuil was uprooted from his home country as civil war tore South Sudan apart. He spent three years in a refugee camp in Uganda as his politician father Joseph returned to South Sudan, before his family moved to Australia.
It’s a past he is acutely aware of, but has put behind him, preferring instead to focus on the opportunity he and his family has been afforded.
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“I feel like it’s a traumatic experience and reliving it doesn’t help at all,” Lual-Acuil told the Herald Sun when asked about his early years.
“There’s nothing really to talk about. It’s one of those things that it’s better to move on from it and just make of what you have in life.
“We were fortunate enough to be able to move to a better country and make something of ourselves and it’s an opportunity we took with open hands and we grasped it and took advantage of it.”
The youngest of four, that positive outlook was ingrained in him by his eternal optimist mother Ayen Mayor.
“She’s always instilled work habits and ethic. She used to get up at five in the morning for six days a week to work to make sure she provided for us and I know how hard that was for her,” he said.
“But she never complained about anything. She was always positive and she instilled that in all of us in our family.”
Now a doting dad to not-quite-eight-month-old daughter Zeruiah, family, more than basketball, is Lual-Acuil’s world.
Partner Justice, who he met while studying and playing hoops at the prestigious Baylor University in the US, and his little girl help him put things into perspective.
“I’m glad I’m a father, she’s one of the most precious things I have in life, my daughter,” he said.
“I just enjoy every day, going home, seeing her. It doesn’t really matter what kind of day I’m having, when I get home she’s over there playing, smiling, laughing and it just makes my day.”
Lual-Acuil has taken his NBL opportunity and run with it, his first season punctuated by a banner 11-point, 15-rebound double-double against Brisbane.
📽
— Melbourne United (@MelbUnitedHQ) November 24, 2019
After posting his first career NBL double-double, we caught up with Jo Lual-Acuil Jr!#WeStandUnited pic.twitter.com/oZtkYfFiIx
Mum’s work ethic has rubbed off on her son, who is the last man off the court after United practice as he goes through pick ‘n’ roll and pick ‘n’ pop drills with assistant coach Ross McMains — a man he calls “my guy” — before draining what must have been 100 three pointers.
“I think his first day here, we (he and McMains) spent over an hour after practice working out, talking about stuff like moving forward and things he saw I needed to get better at,” Lual-Acuil said.
“He’s helped me a lot as far as my growth as a basketball player, just this year alone. He’s always in the gym, I’m always in the gym, so it was a match made in heaven.”
It helps going head-to-head with fellow tower and uber-athletic import Shawn Long.
“Shawn’s obviously a great player and it’s good for me to be able to go against him every single day in practice. We go at each other, which makes us better,” he said.
“I’m cool with everybody in the team. The guys that I normally hang out with are probably Shawn, Melo (Trimble), Sam McDaniel, Casey (Prather).
“On the road trips we room together, but we’re all a tight-knit group.”
Being a latecomer to the game, he knows he has to work hard.
“I played soccer until I was 15 and then ended up playing basketball in Year 10 at school,” he said.
“The first year was kind of rough as far as learning everything and just trying to catch up with guys who had been playing their whole lives but I guess I fell in love with it after that first game.”
I see you Big Jo! @BaylorMBB Jo Lual-Acuil showing off some serious soccer skills in pregame. Someone sign that kid up for intramurals.@BaylorBears247 @TimWatkins04 @ShehanJeyarajah pic.twitter.com/vp0f2GnAiG
— Andrew Miner (@AMINER777) February 13, 2018
Lual-Acuil has had NBA tryouts and played professionally in Israel, before signing with United.
“Nothing beats playing at home, I guess you can’t really put it into words,” he said.
“I love that I get to go home every day and play basketball as a job, which is not really a job, it’s just fun.”
You get the sense the NBA isn’t a high priority, well aware of how fragile life can be.
“As a basketball player, you always want to play at the highest level possible, but if it happens, it happens,” he said.
“I just take care of the day-to-day stuff, just enjoy every day and then whatever happens in the future happens. I can’t really speak on the future because I really don’t know what’s going to happen moving forward.”
It makes sense. A heart issue while he was at Baylor kept him out for a season.
“I’m all good now it was just a little scan that we had and the doctors took care of it and I was cleared to be able to play basketball,” he said.
“I had the right people around me at Baylor to be able to trust in them and understand they had my best interests at heart.”
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Outside of hoops, he’s “a big video game guy”, enjoying rivalries with some of his teammates.
“I’m nice at FIFA (football), good at (NBA)2K, I play a little bit of Fortnight,” he said.
“I’ve played Casey a couple of times in 2K, I played Sam McDaniel in FIFA and I destroyed him.
“I’m kind of lazy when it comes to outside of basketball. I’m so tired after practice or games, I usually just go home and hang out with my daughter, I’m really inside most of the time, honestly.”
One of many success stories out of Australia’s burgeoning Sudanese cohort, Lual-Acuil is a deep thinker who wants to be a role model for youth. It hits home when he sees his community tarnished by the actions of a few.
“In every community there is going to be some kids who are on the wrong path and you can generalise a whole community because of a few incidents that have happened,” he said.
“The focus should be on how we’re trying to help those kids get on the right path instead of bashing the whole community.
“I want to let all the kids in my community know that anything is possible and you can achieve whatever you want if you put your mind to it.”
UNITED v TAIPANS
WHEN
Boxing Day, 7.30pm Melbourne Arena
STARTING FIVES (probable)
United
Melo Trimble
Chris Goulding
Mitch McCarron
David Barlow
Shawn Long
Taipans
Scott Machado
Mirko Djeric
DJ Newbill
Majok Deng
Cameron Oliver
BETTING
Head-to-Head
United $1.45
Taipans $2.75
Line
United -5.0 $1.90
Taipans +5.0 $1.90
Match-up I
Trimble (Mel) v Machado (Cns)
Former Taipan Trimble will be desperate to get one back on his old club after having his colours lowered twice already this season.
Match-up II
Goulding (Mel) v Newbill (Cns)
The heartbeats of their respective teams, the Goulding-Newbill match up is sure to throw up plenty of for the highlights reel as well as momentum-shifting buckets.
Michael Randall says: Two of the NBL’s form sides, the Taipans have become a bogey team for United, having won both their clashes this season — in Cairns. Surely United exacts some revenge on their northern counterparts with a strong showing on Boxing Day.
Prediction: United by 9
Originally published as Melbourne United’s Jo Lual-Acuil Jr opens up on his tough formative years and how his family shaped the man he is today