Inglewood’s Jason Crowe Jr. becomes California’s all-time leading scorer

INGLEWOOD — There never was a question of if Inglewood’s Jason Crowe Jr. would break the state’s all-time scoring record.

It always seemed to be one of when, and the answer came with 7:51 left in the third quarter of Tuesday’s Ocean League opener against Beverly Hills.

Crowe entered the game needing 29 points to pass Tounde Yessoufou’s record of 3,659 points that he established while playing for St. Joseph High of Santa Maria last year before heading to Baylor University.

Just moments after the start of the second half, Crowe hit a 3-pointer to give him the points he needed to pass Yessoufou. Crowe did in his 100th high school game.

“When he (Yessoufou) broke the record, I told him I was going to break it the next year,” Crowe Jr. said with a laugh. “And I did.”

Crowe was facing double- and triple-teams from Beverly Hills from the outset. He managed to score 11 points in the first quarter and 13 points in the second, leaving him five points short.

To start the second half, he knocked down a pair of free throws, setting the stage for the record-breaking 3-pointer moments later.

Crowe finished the game with 51 points in Inglewood’s 112-75 win.

“He always said he wanted to be a great basketball player and to do that, there’s no negotiations,” said Inglewood coach Jason Crowe Sr., who is also the player’s father. “He asked me what it takes … His work ethic is great. He can always get better, but he’s serious. He gets up early every morning, does his meditation, does his stretching, does his morning work. He drives me crazy because he wants to go to shoot and he does it every night. That’s how you earn this.”

Crowe started the season with 3,331 points and became the CIF Southern Section’s all-time scoring leader, passing Jarod Lucas (Los Altos), in the first game of the season.

In Inglewood’s eight games so far this season, Crowe has topped the 40-point mark in seven of them and has three games with 50-plus points.

Now Crowe finds himself in the driver’s seat with the record. He has 3,682 points with two more months to go in the season. The next target is reaching 4,000 points.

According to Cal-Hi Sports, there 14 players in state history with at least 3,000 points. There are none with 4,000.

“I saw him at his house when he was about 7-8-9 years old and he was watching film of Pistol Pete (Maravich) and Jerry West,” longtime basketball observer and coach DeAnthony Langston said. “That’s when I knew right there, he was a savant …All this stuff, it doesn’t surprise me, because he puts in the work. His dad was a hell of a player. His dad went overseas (to play), he almost made the NBA.

“Not all the times kids listen to their parents. He (Crowe Jr.) listened and he wanted it. He never wavered away from that right there. His responsibilities of being a great player, being one of the greatest ever out of here .and that’s what he wanted to be and it’s not going to surprise me when he goes to college, the NBA and do the same thing.”

“It’s his dedication to the game,” Langston added. “When everybody else is going out, he’s at home, he’s working out, he’s going to shoot. He’s in the Inglewood gym. He’s in the Morningside gym working out. He’s a coach’s dream.”

After a long night of battling multiple defenses and the emotional relief of breaking the record, Crowe said he was headed back out for another shooting workout.

“I don’t have time to take a break from basketball,” he said. “If I want to accomplish my dream and make it attainable, I’ve got to keep working every day. I mean, the breaks are going to come when I get there. Until I get there, there’s no breaks. The only break I need is when I sleep.”