Jeff Bryant holds the plaque high after coaching the Dolphins to the City championship in his second season at Palisades High School.
Photo: STEVE GALLUZZO
By STEVE GALLUZZO
CTN Contributor
When Jeff Bryant took the job as head boys basketball coach at Palisades High he could not have imagined the journey he and his team would take over the next 22 months.
The adversity created by the Palisades Fire bonded the team in a way only tragedy can and that cohesiveness culminated in the program’s first upper division City championship in 57 years.
“We’ve accomplished two of our goals, winning league and City, now we’re going for the state,” Bryant said. “We’re not done.”
Palisades center Julian Cunningham wins the opening tip in February 27, 2026, Friday night City Section Open Division final.
Photo: STEVE GALLUZZO
Following in their father’s footsteps, OJ and EJ Popoola brought pride back to a community they have embraced since moving to the area in the summer and their storybook fantasy of a section title became reality Friday night at Southwest College.
OJ scored 19 points and his twin brother added 17 to pace the No. 1-seeded Dolphins to a 75-56 victory over second-seeded Cleveland in the Open Division final. It marked Palisades’ first City title since taking the Division I prize in 2020 under Donzell Hayes, a teammate of Chris Popoola on the Dolphins’ 1995-96 squad which won the outright Western League crown but fell in overtime to Crenshaw in the City 4A semifinals.
“City was the goal from the first day we came here,” OJ said. “It was a matter of getting healthy and on the court at the same time,” EJ added. “We had guys out, we had to practice all over the place, but now we have our whole team and we’ll compete with anyone.”
Raised in Las Vegas, the twins drew inspiration from their older brother Christian, who won three Nevada state titles at Bishop Gorman before graduating in 2017 and went on to play at Utah.
They played for Arbor View High in Las Vegas as freshmen and spent their sophomore year at Voyageur College Prep in Detroit but were thrilled their dad moved the family to Marina del Rey.
“Palisades was one game away from playing for a championship my senior year and now these boys have finished the job,” Chris Popoola said. “We live 20 minutes from campus and we wanted to do this for the community. The next goal is to repeat.”
Junior 3-point specialist Jack Levey, who has been on the team for three years, made five long-range shots (giving him 108 this season) and finished with 15 points while freshman Phillip Reed had 13, junior AJ Neale had five and center Julian Cunningham added four. Senior Elliott Okpala came off the bench to net the team’s last two points on a pair of free throws.
Palisades never trailed, taking a 7-0 lead less than a minute into the game and widening the margin to 17 points by the end of the first quarter. The Dolphins led 42-23 at halftime and 64-34 going to the fourth quarter.
OJ Popoola draws contact but scores anyway in the first half of Palisades’ 75-56 triumph over Cleveland. OJ would score 19 points in the game.
Photo: STEVE GALLUZO
Though overmatched, the Cavaliers (20-10) did not give up and outscored Palisades 22-11 in the fourth quarter. Sergine Deme scored 19 points and sophomore sensation Charlie Adams had 13. Both teams made the Open Division semifinals last winter.
“After all we’ve gone through going back to last season we stuck together so it’s definitely satisfying ,” added Bryant, whose team has played but a handful of times in its own gym in his two years at the helm. “You spend so much time away from the family. I’ve been chasing a championship since I started coaching.”
Before Palisades’ game, Bryant watched his alma mater Sylmar win the Division II crown and gave longtime Spartans coach Bort Escoto, whom he played for, a warm embrace.
Bryant began his coaching career as an assistant at West Ranch in 2017. He took over as varsity coach during the 2019-20 season and piloted the Wildcats to three Foothill League titles and the Southern Section Open Division playoffs in 2023.
“It was so cool seeing coach win right before our game,” Bryant said. “It made me want to win even more to make him proud.”
Bryant is only the sixth boys basketball head coach in Palisades history and joins the program’s first coach, Jerry Marvin, as the only two to claim upper division titles. Chris Marlowe, who went on to lead the USA men’s national volleyball team to gold at the 1984 Summer Olympics, scored 29 points in the championship game against Cleveland in 1969 back in the days before there were multiple playoff divisions.
After beating Narbonne for the City Division I title, the Dolphins’ 2019-20 team advanced to the SoCal Regional Division IV final but lost to Bakersfield Christian, falling one win short of a trip to Sacramento for the CIF state finals which got canceled days later because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Regional pairings were released Sunday and Palisades (20-11) was awarded the No. 8 seed in Division II (the third-highest after Open and Division I) and hosts No. 9 Mira Mesa, the San Diego Section Division I champion, in the first round Tuesday at 8 p.m.
The Dolphins are riding a 12-game winning streak which began with a 91-54 rout of University on January 21.
Palisades’ girls’ squad, which has been idle since losing in the City Open Division quarterfinals on February 12, is seeded fifth in Division IV and hosts No. 12 La Palma Kennedy on Tuesday at 6 p.m., right before the boy’s game.
Twins EJ and OJ Popoola with their father Chris, a 1996 Palisades alum, at Friday’s game at LA Southwest College.
Photo: STEVE GALLUZZO