SPRINGFIELD, MA – Tounde Yessoufou-led St. Joseph High keeps grinding out wins while he continues to power his way closer to becoming the all-time career leader among California boys basketball players.
But, from the perspective of the 6-foot-5, senior and native of the African country of Benin, the most important path the Knights are on is the one that they hope leads them to Sacramento, and into the Golden 1 Center, on March 15.
On that night, the state’s best boys hoops teams – one representing the North and the other the South – will duke it out in the Open Division finale.
“I want to win the state championship,” he said, smiling, Saturday afternoon after helping his team knock off Atlanta’s Holy Innocents, 61-57, in a HoopHall Classic game in Springfield College’s Blake Arena.
“And”, he added, matter-of-factly,” be the (state) player of the year.”
The efforts he and his teammates turned in while edging the Caleb Wilson-led Holy Innocents (13-3) spoke volumes in support of those collective and individual aspirations for March.
Yessoufou scored 22 points, grabbed eight rebounds and five steals.
The last of those steals came after he’d missed his fourth consecutive free throw with 9.7 seconds to go and was turned into a layup while being fouled.
His free throw pushed his team’s advantage to seven points and rendered Holy Innocent’s 3-pointer with 1.7 seconds to go moot.
The Knights (18-1) used a collective effort to try to negate the effectiveness of the 6-9 Wilson, who is expected to announce his college choice – apparently, Kentucky, North Carolina or Ohio State – on Thursday.
Wilson unleashed the entire repertoire in the first quarter, hitting a 3, soaring well into the square to snatch rebounds and sprint like few guys his size can.
Yessoufou picked up his second foul with 2:39 to go into the second quarter, limiting the aggressiveness he could use to challenged Wilson.
But Coach Tom Mott used multiple other defenders, notably 6-9, 235-pound sophomore Godson Eyita off the bench (five rebounds in eight minutes), to keep Wilson from bouncing over the top the Knights.
Wilson, a consensus Top 10 prospect in the national class of 2025, scored 21 points but missed his final three attempts (all from within or just outside of the lane) while grabbing 15 rebounds but committing seven turnovers.
And the Knights also got critical points from sophomore and junior guards Malcolm Price (14 points, including two 3s, and six rebounds) and Gunner Morinini (11 points; three 3s and two steals), respectively.
Yessoufou’s 23 points pushed his career total (over 120 games in three-plus season) to 3,261. That’s good for No. 7 on the California all-time list.
There are 10 regular-season games yet to play – including the clash with Modesto Christian Monday afternoon at De La Salle High in Concord.
Barring the unforeseen, he’ll ease past the 3,462 (by DeMarcus Nelson of Sacramento Sheldon) that has been the state record for 21 years well before the sectional playoffs start.
His freshman and sophomore seasons ended with losses to Harvard-Westlake (in the Southern Open regional first round and in the State Open final in Sacramento).
And a loss to Brayden Burries and Eastvale Roosevelt – in a Southern Regional semifinal last March 2 – kept Yessoufou and the Knights from a third pop at Nikolas Khamenia and Harvard-Westlake.
Regardless of how – or where – his senior season ends, though, he’ll head to Waco, TX, and Baylor with no regrets about the turn his life took when he came to the U.S. and Santa Maria from Africa in the summer of 2021.
“Things turned out much better than I hoped they would,” he said.
*Three teams that Yessoufou could hook up with in regional action in February or March – assuming the CIF State office assigns the Knights to the Southern Regional, as they did in ’22 and ’24 but not in ’23 – also played Saturday:
Bellflower’s St. John Bosco – No. 3 in last week’s BurlisonOnBasketball SoCal Top 30 – rallied from a 15-point deficit at intermission and took a brief lead before falling to Chantilly (VA) Paul VI, 60-57.
Sherman Oaks’ Notre Dame (No. 4 last week ) trimmed an 18-point deficit to 10 before Miami Columbus scored the first 12 points of the fourth quarter and cruised to a 75-53 win, behind Duke-bound Cameron (25 points/15 rebounds/six assists) and Cayden (19 points/seven assists) Boozer.
And No. 13 Chatsworth Sierra Canyon – like Notre Dame, a member of the Mission League – had no issues in handling Loganville (GA) Grayson, 60-46, as junior Maximo Adams scored a game-high 17 points while senior Bryce James came off the bench for a career-best 16 points (including four 3s).
The SJB Braves (18-3) had a chance to send the game into overtime but a decent look and release by junior Max Ellis was off the front of the rim just before the final buzzer.
One of the top or so players in the Class of 2026 – Jordan Smith – was superb for the Panthers (13-3) with 19 points, six rebounds, five assists and three steals.
Senior guards Chris Komin (with four 3s) and Elzie Harrington scored 16 and 10 points, respectively, for the Braves while junior forward Christian Collins had 12 points and 11 rebounds before fouling out with 19 seconds to go.
Notre Dame (17-3) was led by junior Caleb Ogbu’s 16 points (including four 3s).
Coach Matt Dunn’s SJB Braves are back in Bellflower Monday night for a significant Trinity League game with the visiting JSerra Lions (17-4 and No. 9 last week).
Sierra Canyon (16-3) and Notre Dame are scheduled to return to Mission League action this week in the San Fernando Valley, Coach Andre Chevalier’s Trailblazers going to Encino to play Crespi Wednesday and Coach Matt Sargeant’s Knights traveling to Mission Hills to take on Alemany on the same evening.
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