The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly is sponsored by Bryson Financial.
As always, there’s history in the air for the Long Beach Poly boys’ basketball team as they prepare for the 2024-25 basketball season.
The Jackrabbits enter the year with 2,164 wins (300+ more than the next best team in California) and 65 league championships–also a state record. The team’s star player, Cal signee Jovani Ruff, is 589 points (21 points per game) away from breaking the school record for most points scored.
But as has so often been the case in the Ron Palmer Pavilion–it’s not about the numbers, as gaudy as they may be. It’s about the feeling.
“We gotta get this thing back rolling,” said Poly coach Shelton Diggs, a Jackrabbit alum. “We’ve got 11 Long Beach kids, Jovani went to a private middle school in Long Beach but the whole team is LBUSD elementary, middle, and high school kids. We’re just trying to get it back.”
There aren’t many schools where the Jackrabbits’ 2023-24 season would be considered a disappointment. They won the league title, they reached the CIF-SS Division 2A championship game and made the CIF State playoffs, and they went 24-11. But there also aren’t many schools like Poly–both because of the numbers listed above, and because of the pride carried in the hearts of alums like Diggs, and players like Ruff.
The senior could have gone to any prep school in the country the last two years and been a featured player. He chose to stay at Poly. Why?
“I want to win a championship for the city,” said Ruff. “I want to play in front of my friends and family, in front of my little brother and my mom. I’m playing with all my friends that I grew up with.”
Indeed, while Ruff is the headliner and reigning Moore League Player of the Year, the Jackrabbits are far from a one-man show. They also return first-team All-Moore League studs in Giovanni Ofoegbu, Austin Unegbu, and Jonas Oware, as well as second-team honoree Nana Ofoegbu, who will run the point this year.
The Ofoegbus and Unegbu are all capable of taking the scoring load off of Ruff’s shoulders as multi-year starters.
“Austin and Giovanni are four-year varsity guys, they want to win and get a scholarship,” said Diggs.
As evidence of how far Poly’s program has come back post-COVID, it’s hard to remember that Giovanni Ofoegbu was once asked to play the five. This year, the Jackrabbits will have a point in Nana Ofoegbu, three guard/wings in Ruff, Giovanni Ofoegbu, Unegbu, and will also feature a legit big man in Oware.
After going through a growth spurt, Oware is 6-10 and has increased his physicality and touch around the rim, leaving Poly excited to see him in action.
“He grew like three inches, it’s crazy,” said Ruff. “He’s hitting mid-range jump shots, he’s dunking everything, he rebounds. He looks comfortable out there.”
Backing up that starting five full of all-league players is the best depth in the Moore League. Jett Mattox and Isaac Hagans are both 6-7 sophomores, junior guards Julian Calderone and John Chansy can both catch fire from beyond the arc, and Jaden McMillon brings some senior experience off the bench as well.
“It’s very helpful to have that depth, and it’s all guys who’ve been on varsity as well,” said Diggs. “In the past a lot of our subs were first-year guys and it took them a while to figure out what we want to do. These guys know the defense and offense.”
With such a talented and deep team, Diggs wanted to test his Jackrabbits. He put together a schedule that includes Sierra Canyon, Harvard-Westlake, Windward, and Corona Centennial plus Bishop Montgomery and the St. John Bosco Winter Tourney as well as St. Francis’ Tourney the week after Christmas.
“We want to play some tough teams and see exactly where we are,” said Diggs. “This is a really fun group to coach. They’re close, they hang out together, they just understand what it is we’ve been trying to teach the last two or three years and they’re bringing it down to the younger guys.”
With that schedule and players who’ve been through the Moore League grind a few times you might expect the Jackrabbits to be more excited for their tournament or playoff games than their league contests. Not so, says Ruff.
“There’s been a lot of coaches and transfers talking and saying they’re coming in and taking it from us, so we’re excited to go dominate,” said Ruff. “We want to play the best in the state, too. That’s (Diggs), he wants us to play the best because he believes in us.”
Diggs acknowledged that while his players look forward to the marquee SoCal games, there’s plenty of interest in the league games.
“The Moore League has gotten better and there’s a lot of guys talking around town,” he said. “We have some guys who are itching to show people what they got.”
