{"id":57265,"date":"2025-11-17T20:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T20:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/57265\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T20:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T20:18:10","slug":"long-beach-poly-boys-basketball-preview-the562-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/57265\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Poly Boys\u2019 Basketball Preview \u2013 The562.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach Poly Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Former Jackrabbits\u00a0Wendell \u201cWoWo\u201d Moe, Jr. & Tyson Ruffins.<\/a><\/p>\n

For most programs, graduating a class like last year\u2019s Long Beach Poly boys\u2019 basketball seniors would mean entering a rebuild phase. Most programs aren\u2019t like the Jackrabbits, though. Poly graduated the program\u2019s all-time career scoring leader Jovani Ruff (now at Cal) along with three-year stalwarts Austin Unegbu (Redlands) and Giovanni Ofoegbu. They made the Division 1 CIF Southern Section playoff bracket last year, where they lost in the second round in a two-point thriller with Los Al.<\/p>\n

Somehow, this year, Poly is better. The Jackrabbits finished last year unranked in the CIF State poll and open this year ranked No. 20 in California. That\u2019s the reload expected for a school like Poly, which has 2,187 wins in its history (more than 300 wins clear of the second-best team in the state) and a state-record 66 league titles, as well as 20 CIF-SS titles (second-most) and 7 NBA alums (tied for the most in California).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year reminds me of when Sharrief (Metoyer) lost Ryan Anderson, Alexis Moore, Alex Carmon, Chris Camper all those guys, and then the next year it was Roschon Prince, Jordan Bell, Chris Croom, RJ Strickland, Josh Munzon and they still go to a CIF championship,\u201d said Poly coach Shelton Diggs. \u201cThey lost a lot but their cohesiveness was just as good. So we did lose a lot, but we had a lot of young guys within the pipeline that are stepping up. They\u2019ve been a group together coming up so that cohesiveness is already there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leading the way is 6-10 big man Jonas Oware, a scholar baller who\u2019s committed to Yale, as well as fellow returning first-team All-Moore League honoree Nana Ofoegbu, a speedy 6-2 guard. Playing alongside Oware in the frontcourt is 6-7 junior rebounding machine Isaac Hagens, while three-year varsity guards John Chansy and Julian Calderone will fill out the backcourt.<\/p>\n

\"2025<\/a>Poly senior Jonas Oware wants to lead the Jackrabbits to a title<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have (Jovani Ruff) this year and he was a great scorer, and that\u2019s going to make everybody else step up,\u201d said Oware. \u201cI had to take steps offensively to get more involved\u2013and our team approach, too. We got sent home last year in a way we didn\u2019t like, so especially as seniors we\u2019re like, we really gotta make something happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ofoegbu agreed with the idea that the team has stepped forward despite losing some major senior talent, including his older brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love all those guys, but this year\u2019s team there\u2019s a little more freedom,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019r really growing in our chemistry and we all embrace our roles. We\u2019re brothers on and off the court, it\u2019s something truly amazing. We love each other and we don\u2019t care about who scores how many points.\u201d<\/p>\n

The top-end talent is there, but Poly\u2019s depth is what has them looking so good this year. He\u2019s not penciled in to start just yet but the team\u2019s best player may end up being sophomore Jakobi Oware, Jonas\u2019 little brother. After rocketing up to 6-6 and showing both guard and post skills over the summer, Jakobi started pulling in mid-major scholarship offers. Jett Von is also a 6-7 depth piece off the bench, and the Jackrabbits have welcomed in a pair of transfers for the first time in years, with 6-2 guard Jeremiah Graham and 6-3 sophomore Jayden Ganther.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little new for us, yeah,\u201d Diggs said of the transfers. \u201cIt\u2019s just getting them caught up to speed on what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing watching the Jackrabbits that stands out immediately is their size\u2013with seven players listed at 6-3 or taller, it\u2019s a traditional-looking Poly team with a lot of length and athleticism.<\/p>\n

\"ALLin<\/a>Nana Ofoegbu drives the ball up the court during a game last year<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re long and big, we should be able to rebound and force things on defense,\u201d said Diggs. \u201cIt\u2019s part of coaching at a public\u2013you\u2019re not going to have a 6-9 Jonas check in as a freshman every year. We\u2019ve had our years where we\u2019re small and we weathered that and now it\u2019s back to some size.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jackrabbits have a strong nonleague schedule this year as always. They will play in the Pac Shores against Windward and Harvard-Westlake and face fellow state-ranked public Mayfair at LBCC on Jan. 10, along with games against Etiwanda and Roosevelt. They\u2019ll also compete in the Bosco Winter Tournament (12\/8-12\/13) and the St. Francis Tournament (12\/26-30) as well as the Moore League.<\/p>\n

Diggs, a Poly alum, is also aware of how badly the Jackrabbits\u2019 campus needs a fun Winter from their basketball team after a disastrous football season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to win league, and we want to win whatever CIF division we\u2019re in,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have no control over where they put us but we\u2019re going to play a tough schedule like every year and let the chips fall where they do. Our goal is to win and hopefully go get our first state championship since coach (Ron) Palmer was here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach Poly Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Former Jackrabbits\u00a0Wendell \u201cWoWo\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-57265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}