LONG BEACH – A hefty portion of the better western-based high school basketball players from the Classes of 2025 and ’26 wrapped up play September 25 afternoon at McBride High during the Pangos Frosh/Soph West Camp.
And, from the minute he walked into the building Saturday evening until he left Sunday afternoon, Tounde Yessoufou was on a different plateau than any of the other 200-plus players who participated.
The 6-foot-6 sophomore scored 28 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the team wearing dark jerseys to a 119-113 victory over the white jerseys in the Top 30 Cream of the Crop All-Star Game.
Yessoufou (pictured) was the obvious Most Outstanding Player winner for the entirety of the camp and picked up his team’s MOP tag for the Top 30 contest, too.
The Most Outstanding player for the white jerseys in the Top 30 game was one of the west’s top 2026 point-guards, Rashod Cotton (Modesto Christian), who scored 17 points and delivered several nifty assists.
It was one of the deeper Pangos F/S West camps in a few years, with a multitude of players from up and down the west (and even a terrific sophomore from Saginaw in Michigan, 6-3 Gregory Lawson) showing why they will be high school standouts, sooner than later, and heavily recruited by college programs, coast to coast.
There will be three more Pangos “regional” Frosh/Soph Camps:
*This weekend in Duncanville, TX (South);
*Oct. 15-16 in Chicago (Midwest);
*Oct. 22-23 in Philadelphia (East).
Following are my choices for the “Top 15” performers in the camp this past weekend, not based upon “next-level (college or NBA) potential” but just relative to how they played, at both ends of the floor, when I watched them play.
The only players “eligible” for this list were the guys who attended both days of the camp and were in attendance for the all-star games:
Top 15
(alpha listing)
Class of 2025
Kade Bonam 6-7 Bellflower St. John Bosco
Aaron Glass 6-3 Rancho Cucamonga
Kellen Hampton 6-7 Hayward Moreau Catholic
Tae Simmons 6-7 Northridge Heritage Christian
E.J. Spillman 6-3 Newport Pacifica Christian
Caleb Versher 6-2 Playa del Rey St. Bernard
Issac Williamson 6-1 Riverside Poly
Tounde Yessoufou 6-6 Santa Maria St. Joseph
Class of 2026
Maximo Adams 6-6 Harbor City Narbonne
Kaiden Bailey 6-3 Irvine Crean Lutheran
Rashod Cotton 6-0 Modesto Christian
Brannon Martinsen 6-7 Santa Ana Mater Dei
Brayden Kyman 6-7 Santa Margarita
Maximus VanLaningham 6-7 Roseville Woodcreek
Rodney Westmoreland 5-10 San Ramon Dougherty Valley
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