More than two weeks ago, Jason Crowe Jr. became California’s all-time leading scorer in high school boys basketball.
Scoring 51 points to set the new state record was worthy of a headline in itself. It wasn’t quite half of Inglewood’s points in a 112-75 win over Beverly Hills, but it was well above his season average of 44.7 per game. That’s more than one point per minute in a regulation high school game.
“I don’t think you can predict this,” said Jason Crowe Sr., who coaches his son at Inglewood, west of downtown Los Angeles. “He got off to a great start. I think we lost the first game he played in, and he figured something out and the next game he kind of exploded. He’s been steady right there for the entirety of his career. My hat’s off to him (for) his mindset he brings game in and game out to be consistent.”
Crowe Jr., who signed with the University of Missouri, is the fourth-ranked player in ESPN’s SCNext 100. He is also the latest great to etch his name in the history of a city that was home to the Lakers during its “Showtime” era.
Inglewood High also produced Paul Pierce, Reggie Theus, Harold Miner and Jay Humphries. City rival Morningside, which closed this past summer, has seen the likes of Byron Scott, Elden Campbell, Lisa Leslie and Tina Thompson.
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For Crowe Sr., who played overseas from 2000-12, coaching at his alma mater is a dream come true, three seasons after leading Lynwood to a Division V state championship. Lynwood is a 13-mile drive east of Inglewood, where Crowe graduated from Morningside.
“When the Inglewood job came open, that’s our neighborhood,” Crowe Sr. said. “So, I was excited to come back, and – boom! – try to revive that, to rebuild it from scratch, work with the players there and give everybody the resources necessary to uplift our community.”
Inglewood is 10-4 this season after going 26-7 and winning the California Interscholastic Federation’s Ocean League in the Crowes’ maiden voyage with the Sentinels.
Crowe Jr. needs just 43 points for 4,000 in his career, according to MaxPreps, and he could reach the mark in Inglewood’s first King Cotton Holiday Classic game Saturday evening against Arkansas 5A champion Benton (9-4). Tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m. at the Pine Bluff Convention Center and will precede Pine Bluff’s showdown against Dallas’ Faith Family Academy.
The elder Crowe is enjoying another homecoming of a sort with this trip. His grandmother is from Waldo, a little town north of Magnolia.
“I have family there, still,” Crowe Sr. said. “This gives us a chance to go home, for (Crowe Jr.) to play in front of his cousins and things of that nature. That definitely is a big part. And for our team, we really want to compete. We hopefully can either win, or we can learn so we can prepare for a run here.”
King Cotton alumnus Tounde Yessoufou of St. Joseph (Santa Maria, Calif.) held the previous California record of 3,659 points. Yessoufou set the King Cotton single-game record of 46 against Duncanville, Texas, in 2023.
King Cotton has long brought together some of the country’s best public- and private-school teams, and Inglewood is among many public-school programs finding ways to stay relevant in a changing basketball landscape. Some like programs have benefited from relaxed transfer rules allowing players from an outside school district to make immediate impacts, but that’s not the case at Inglewood.
“We just play with the kids in our neighborhood,” Crowe Sr. said. “I don’t think people realize that. And that’s helped him to become a better player because he has to lead them. He has to organize the defense. He has to score a lot of points.”
Crowe Sr. named one other player when asked about other key contributors, and that’s 6-foot-7 junior David Conerly. He’s the team’s leading field-goal shooter at 54% and averages 18.6 points and 7.6 rebounds a game.
There’s also 5-foot-11 senior Matthew Gibbs-Martinez, who rings up 10.1 points and 3.1 steals per game.
“(Conerly will) come into his own, but we don’t have any national guys just yet,” Crowe Sr. said. “We’re just trying to build these guys up and give them opportunity, and we’ve got our soldiers, so that’s who we’re showing up to the fight with.”
Aside from shooting 52% from the floor and averaging 4.9 assists and 3.4 steals per game, the most fun part of Crowe Jr.’s game is his energy, his dad believes.
“He approaches every practice and every game the same way,” Crowe Sr. said. “So, it’s been fun to work with him. I liken it to a producer, like Quincy Jones for Michael Jackson. You’re working with a great artist who loves to come to work every day, so it’s my job to prepare him, and it challenges me to be the best I can be. That’s what’s been great, his love and his spirit.”
Saturday: Other standouts are set to take the King Cotton stage.