PORT ANGELES — J.T. Terrell hasn’t logged even one minute for the Peninsula College men’s basketball team. But he’s already broken new ground.
The North Carolina high school phenom, once rated a top 50 national basketball recruit by ESPN, signed a letter of intent Wednesday to play for the University of Southern California in 2012.
With that, the newest addition to Pirates head coach Lance Von Vogt’s talent-laden roster became the school’s first Pac-12 scholarship basketball player.
It was just the latest chapter in a whirlwind ride that has one of the nation’s top shooting guards suiting up in Pirate black and gold just months after he donned the same colors at Wake Forest University.
“He’s really just looking for a clean slate, a new start, a chance to put himself back on a new path,” Von Vogt said while sitting in his office the day before the ceremony.
It takes special circumstances for a player of Terrell’s caliber to land on the North Olympic Peninsula.
In his case, it’s about getting a second chance at resurrecting a once-promising career.
Before arriving at Wake Forest, the rangy 6-foot-3 wing was regarded by ESPN as one of the top shooting guards (14th) and top players overall (49th) in his class nationally.
He won a state championship his freshman year at Cummings High School in Burlington, N.C., and eventually transferred to West Charlotte High School as a senior and was a 2010 McDonald’s All-America nominee.
He played on the well-known AAU team D-One Sports — 2010 No. 1 overall NBA draft pick John Wall was a teammate — and committed to Wake Forest as a high school sophomore.
“Terrell can put points on the board as well as anybody in the country,” an espn.com scouting report read in August of 2009.
Once he got to the Winston-Salem, N.C., campus he didn’t disappoint either, at least on the court. He was the Demon Deacons’ No. 2 scorer as a freshman and put up 32- and 27-point games against Iowa and Xavier, respectively.
Still, his team struggled, going 1-15 in the ACC and 8-24 overall in head coach Jeff Bzdelik’s first season at Wake Forest.
“It was a great experience, a big learning experience, I learned a lot within that year,” said Terrell, who started 18 of 32 games and averaged 11.1 points per game.
Added Terrell, “It wasn’t the best of seasons, but I can’t say it didn’t help me develop as a player.”
That development was halted off the court, however, when he was arrested and charged with driving while impaired a couple of weeks into the fall semester of his sophomore year.
Within a week of the arrest, he withdrew from Wake Forest citing “a serious medical condition” — and was searching for a new place to start all over.
“I just thought it was best that I withdraw from school and take care of my problems,” said Terrell, rated the No. 1 junior-college player in the country by Swanny’s Roundball Review.
“I just wanted to get me some help just to make sure I didn’t have any alcohol abuse problems or anything of that sort.
“I would say it was [difficult leaving Wake Forest]. I mean, getting in some serious trouble is not anything that anybody would ever look forward to.
“If I could have avoided it then I would have, but everything happens for a reason.”
Few NWAACC coaches are more connected to the national basketball scene than Peninsula College’s Von Vogt.
Having served as either head coach, assistant coach or head of basketball operations at college programs in Georgia, Kentucky, Arizona and Washington, he has ties across the country.
As Von Vogt likes to put it, it’s not who you know, “but who knows you.”
That a member of the USC men’s basketball staff knew Von Vogt and recommended Terrell’s mother, Antia Curry, give him a call helped steer the top prospect to Peninsula College.
Von Vogt is actually prohibited from actively recruiting outside the Pacific Northwest, per NWAACC rules.
Thus, Terrell and his family needed to contact Von Vogt first.
That call came roughly a week after he left Wake Forest, Von Vogt said.
“I’ve just been real fortunate to work in different parts of the country and have enough people that respect what I’ve done with the groups that I’ve worked with,” said Von Vogt, who guided the Pirates to an NWAACC title in his first season last winter.
“After the incident occurred at Wake Forest and he had withdrawn . . . he was talking to some other coaches and our program and my name came up, so they just reached out to me.”
Terrell came to Port Angeles in time to enroll in the fall quarter, making him one of 12 out-of-state recruits set to suit up for Peninsula this winter.
Of course, he’s the only one already locked in to Division I scholarship.
“It’s nice, it’s quiet,” Terrell said of Port Angeles.
“[There’s] not much to do so you don’t really have to worry about trouble, so that’s good.”
If there’s one thing that stands out about Terrell at first glance, it’s the length of his arms.
While he doesn’t have tremendous height at 6-3, he has an 81-inch wingspan and incredibly large hands.
His father, James Thomas Terrell III, played college ball at UNC-Charlotte. His mother was also a college athlete.
J.T. made a name for himself as a streaky shooter at Wake Forest, but he has plenty of other tools as well.
He can handle the ball like a point guard, defend several positions and score at the hoop.
Thrown together with a team that includes two starters and several other returners from last year’s NWAACC title team, that should translate into a brand of basketball rarely seen at Peninsula.
“He’s really a versatile guy, and I don’t think you really categories him too much with a position,” said Von Vogt, who will start Terrell at shooting guard.
“He’s a guy that can handle the ball at different spots on the floor, he can make shots from different spots on the floor and we’re going to see him being utilized at wherever we feel like we have the best advantage.
“We’ve also got some really good players around him that can do all the same things, so by design I think that if we keep our team concept first he’s going to stand out but blend in.”
Von Vogt said he had some reservations about bringing Terrell in for a one-year stint in Port Angeles.
In the end, however, he said he thought Terrell was worthy of a second chance.
“He needed to find a location where he was going to be able to concentrate on books and basketball, and kind of put him in a position to be successful,” Von Vogt said.
“Between the time that I spent with him on the phone, his mother on the phone, and then previous coaches that had coached him . . .
“I felt like this was a young man that had got caught up and made a mistake and needed an extra chance.
“It fit with our mission as a college and our mission as an athletic department to provide those opportunities and allow him the opportunity to make the best of it.
“Now the ball is in his court.”
