Makor Shayok stands 6 feet 9 inches and weighs 230 pounds. So it isn`t his size that marks him unique among college basketball players.

Rather, it is the size of his family.

On Jan. 26, when Shayok scored 11 points in Dayton`s home game against Butler, his wife Helen gave birth at Miami Valley Hospital here to the couple`s first son, 7-pound-10-ounce Shayok Makor Shayok.

Makor and Helen Shayok already were the parents of three daughters:

Akulel 5, Lav 3, and Yar 1.

Shayok, 25, is a Christian native of Khartoum in the strife-torn African nation of Sudan. He speaks fluently in three languages-English, Arabic and Dinka, his tribal dialect.

In August, Makor Marial Shayok Yul Bol Manyang Thyen Bakjok Chueu Alilek will receive his bachelor`s degree in General Studies with an emphasis in marketing. Before attending Dayton, he graduated from Alvin (Texas) Community College, where he enrolled six years ago, before he learned how to speak English.

A fierce rebounder, Shayok features a jump hook shot. He sometimes antagonizes Flyer fans by firing from three-point range. He has led Dayton rebounders in his two seasons as a Flyer.

Shayok would like to play professional basketball, but he realizes an NBA career is unlikely. So he plans to take his family to Europe and play there, because the civil war, starvation and discrimination against Christians in his native land have left him, as he puts it, ''like a man without a country.''

In the meantime, this upbeat, outgoing man budgets his time among his roles as student, athlete, husband and father.

His ''typical day'' is hardly that. Classes take most of the time from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Next comes basketball practice. After practice, he goes home, and while his wife attends a class to learn English, Shayok puts the children in their room and keeps one eye on them and the other on his textbooks.

''I tell the kids, `Be quiet. Watch TV. Play with your toys, while I do my homework,` '' he said. ''After homework, it`s time for me to play with the kids. Then we pick up their mother, and go home together. . . .''

The material survival of the Shayok family is a tribute to the energy and resourcefulness of the young parents, to money Shayok saved from summer jobs and to fellow parishioners at Holy Angels Catholic Church near the Dayton campus.

Shayok`s scholarship covers the rent for the four-room home his family occupies in the university`s ''Student Ghetto'' section, where nightly beer blasts are regular fare for undergrads with coins in their jeans or money from home.

The Shayok budget has no room for partying. He struggles to feed and clothe his family of six on the same $300 per month food allowance that goes to an unmarried student athlete who eats off campus. NCAA rules bar an athlete on scholarship from taking a job during the school year.

''Every week I go to the grocery store and spend $70 for food,'' Shayok said. ''That`s the $300 a month. It all goes for food.''

But everything is relative. Back in Sudan, Shayok points out, ''Every dime goes for the military.'' So he refuses to complain about his lifestyle. In fact, he genuinely believes-and doesn`t hesitate to tell you-he has been blessed.

''I`m lucky, very lucky to live here the way I do and have my family here with me,'' he said. ''My family and I are doing just great.''

In the summer of 1990, after he decided to go to Dayton, Shayok worked long overtime hours on a construction job in Dayton to save up the airfare needed to transport his wife and three daughters to the U.S.

The entire Shayok family left Sudan together shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait. The American embassy in Sudan was closed a few weeks after the Shayoks left the country when it was discovered Sudan supported Iraq.

''We were lucky,'' Shayok reiterated. ''If my family were still in Sudan, it would be real bad. The Muslims want to conquer and convert the Christians. They want to make Sudan an Islamic country, to make Africans and Christians conform to their laws and culture.''

Civil strife has been prevalent in Sudan for more than a decade. It triggered Shayok`s decision six years ago to leave a wife pregnant with their first child to travel 8,000 miles to Houston for a chance to attend college and play basketall before he even could speak the language.

Shayok played no basketball until he was 13. Soccer was his game. He was a crude basketball player. He never played in an organized game until he reached Texas. But he was big and strong. Fellow tribesman Manute Bol, the 7-7 NBA shotblocker, convinced Shayok he could play in the States.

There was another incentive.

''I had just married,'' he recalled. ''I was accepted at the University of Juba at home. But young people were being put into the military, into the movement.

''Helen was pregnant with our first child, but I told her this move was our best hope, the best for all of us.''

So Shayok and a friend set off for Houston, where they had another friend. University of Houston coach Pat Foster steered the rough-hewn African to Alvin coach Gary Coffman. At Alvin, Shayok improved his game and his English.

''I lived with four players in a dorm,'' he recalled. ''I listend to them and watched TV and worked hard on the language with my teachers.''

He must have paid more attention to the teachers than the TV or his teammates. His English is remarkably free from jive or slang.

Pickup games against pros such as Hakeem Olajuwon improved Shayok`s game to the point where he averaged 18 points and 11 rebounds in his last year at Alvin.

Ultimately, Shayok would like to return to Sudan and operate his own business there. The timetable is cloudy.

''I can`t go back now,'' he said. ''It would not be safe for my family. If they just stop the killing! It`s a beautiful country . . . rain all the time, jungles, big trees, rivers, lots of mines for gold. And oil. It can be so prosperous if there were no war. . . .''

Makor Shayok`s personal philosophy is easy to spot. Anyone who has seen him battle for a rebound or flash that ''I`m just great!'' smile of his understands what drives him.

''I believe in committing to something,'' he said. ''I believe in doing something. If you want to do it badly enough, you`ll do it.''

Shayok says he`s close to his Flyer teammates ''when we practice and when we play games. But after basketball, we go our own ways. I go home to my family.''

Does he miss going out with the boys, as he did when he was at Alvin and Helen was in Sudan?

''Yeah, I miss it,'' he said. ''But I love being with my kids.''