Gonzaga's Jun Seok Yeo 'just scratching the surface' as only Korean player in NCAA Division-I men's basketball
Even 5,000 miles away from Seoul, South Korea, Jun Seok Yeo is often reminded of his home whenever the Gonzaga Bulldogs are on the road for a game along the West Coast.
From the first time he saw the South Korean flag held up proudly by fans at the Stan Sheriff Center during the Maui Invitational in Hawaii, Yeo has spotted the Taegeuk fly in gyms across the West Coast Conference. After Gonzaga's win at Pepperdine earlier this season, he stopped for nearly 30 minutes after the game to interact with a group of Korean fans who had come to support him. Being the only Korean player in NCAA Division-I men's basketball brings quite the buzz and excitement wherever Yeo travels.
"In [WCC play] every gym we go you see a few Korean flags and you see people come to see him," said Gonzaga assistant coach Jorge Sanz of the 21-year-old. "He's humble and he's extremely down to earth ... but he's still in love with all the people that don't know him [that] come just to follow him or come to see him because it's pretty much every gym that we've been to."
What most of Yeo's followers and fans don't see, however, is all the hours he's spent in the classroom and the sacrifices he's made in hopes of one day achieving his goal of playing professionally in the NBA.
In 2017, Yeo was selected to represent South Korea in the NBA's Asia-Pacific Cup, along with Hyunjung Lee, who would go on to become the fourth Korean to ever play men's college basketball when he was at Davidson from 2019-22. Both were invited to the newly formed NBA Global Academy by scouting director and South Korean native, Eugene Park.
"Jun was a little different. He was a little more well-rounded," said Chris Ebersole, the vice president and head of International Basketball Development at the NBA. "He was stronger and had just a real kind of dynamic game as a forward, and he added a lot in terms of physicality and just an overall sort of well-roundedness that he could plug and play with our Global Academy."
Yeo spent one year building up his body at the Academy before taking center stage at the 2019 Basketball Without Borders event in Tokyo, where he won the tournament's most valuable player award.
Two years later, he played at the 2021 U19 FIBA World Cup in Latvia. Yeo led the tournament in scoring at 25.6 points while grabbing 10.6 rebounds per game with a South Korean team that won one of its seven games. The tournament featured plenty of future NBA talent, including the two current NBA Rookie of the Year frontrunners, Chet Holmgren (USA) and Victor Wembanyama (France).
"There were some traits that were unequivocal, some instincts and some ability to put the ball in the basket," Sanz said. "I really enjoyed watching him play."
Sanz, an assistant coach on Spain's youth team at the time, wasn't sure if Yeo would be interested in playing college basketball in the U.S., but that didn't stop him from looking for a viable path to make it happen. Sanz didn't have many connections in South Korea, though it helped that Yeo wasn't on any other program's radar at the time. Once Sanz acquired Yeo's high school transcripts, Gonzaga began going through the process with the NCAA to grant Yeo eligibility.
Gonzaga sophomore Jun Seok Yeo.
Photo by Erik Smith, Myk Crawford
Yeo's recruitment process and path to Gonzaga were unlike most. From all the hoops and workarounds to the COVID-19 pandemic making travel and visits essentially impossible, Sanz admitted that Yeo's recruitment "almost died" on two separate occasions.
"There were a lot of hurdles. Not problems, but just like having to figure it out academically ... so we were always very upfront in terms of like, we'd rather under-promise and over-deliver, like it's a long shot," Sanz said. "In the end it became a reality, it became possible he would make it over."
"But also he made a ton of sacrifices back home. His dream was to play in the NBA and to play basketball in the U.S. So he felt this path was to help him get a better chance, a higher likelihood of one day achieving that, so he definitely made some significant sacrifices."
Gonzaga's track record with international players played into Yeo's decision, and like any other international student-athlete, he was subject to a rigorous academic schedule consisting of ESL classes and long study sessions which would go on all day. As a freshman, Yeo was lucky if he managed to catch the last few minutes of practice by the time he was done with schoolwork.
"His tutoring sessions were enormous," Sanz said. "The time that he was putting in was significantly greater than anyone else, other than maybe Rui Hachimura’s first year."
Yeo enjoyed being on the court whenever he could, though the transition to Gonzaga's style of play hasn't come easy. Along with learning the pace and physicality of the U.S. college game, Yeo has had to adjust to not being the undisputed No. 1 scorer on his team but still maintain an aggressive mentality within the scope of a more team-orientated brand of basketball.
“He’s an extremely unselfish player to a fault," Sanz said. “He just doesn't want to disrupt the fit and the harmony of the other group, even on the court. He’s trying too hard to appease us, so we want him to be himself. We want him to be aggressive”
As Yeo continues to build a day-to-day routine, he tries to make the most of his limited time on the court. Yeo averages 7.5 minutes off the bench and has appeared in 22 of the Bulldogs' 28 games this season. He had a season-high 10 points in 16 minutes as a starter against Arkansas-Pine Bluff in December and logged 23 minutes two games later against Mississippi Valley State.
At 6-foot-8, 215 pounds, Yeo has the frame to hang with most of the competition in Division-I basketball. The next stage of development, according to Sanz, involves the nuances of the game — learning ball-screen coverages, communication, sound decision-making, reading and reacting — to go with his athletic build and scoring ability along the perimeter.
"He's just scratching the surface and has a chance to keep developing and develop into a pretty special player," Ebersole said. “I think there's a lot of trust that [Gonzaga has] his long-term interests at heart and we knew it'd be probably a transition year for him. But I think he's up for the challenge."
For now, Yeo nears the end of his first full season with the Bulldogs as they make a run toward the program's 25th-straight NCAA Tournament appearance — and surely many more interactions with fans and followers along the way.
"He's a good soul," Sanz said. "He's a good kid, he's a hard worker. He's just trying his best to make it work and make it happen."
