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Boys’ basketball: Atanga could be big find from tiny school

Los Angeles Times staff writer Ben Bolch
By Ben Bolch
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Yannick Atanga, a 6-foot-7 junior forward from Cameroon, is showing why he’s drawing interest from UCLA, Stanford, Gonzaga and UC Santa Barbara despite playing for Besant Hill, a boarding school of only 100 students located in Ojai.

Atanga is dominating inside for the Coyotes with an assortment of dunks, power moves and even a nifty behind-the-back pass. He has 19 points and nine rebounds for Besant Hill, which is tied with Hope Centre Academy, 34-34, at halftime of the Division VI-A championship tonight at Colony.

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It looked for a while like Atanga and fellow Cameroonian big man Francois Tchoyi were going to overwhelm the Lions, but Hope rallied in the second quarter to wipe out what had been an early nine-point deficit. Tchoyi has 13 points and seven rebounds.

Junior forward Jalil Hardwick has 21 points for the Lions. Whichever team prevails will win the first section title--in any sport--in its school’s history.

--Ben Bolch

Varsity Times Insider
Ben Bolch

Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. He is serving his second stint as the UCLA beat writer, which seems fitting since he has covered almost every sports beat except hockey and horse racing. Bolch is also the author of the recently released book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.” He previously covered UCLA basketball from 2010-11 before going on to cover the NBA and the Clippers for five years. He happily traded in gobs of hotel points and airline miles to return to cover UCLA basketball and football in the summer of 2016. Bolch was once selected by NBA TV’s “The Starters” as the “Worst of the Week” after questioning their celebrity journalism-style questions at an NBA All-Star game and considers it one of his finer moments.

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