Kwaku Amoaku moved to San Diego County from Maryland at age 15 when his father was hired as a music professor at a new university called Cal State San Marcos. He played basketball at San Marcos High and Mira Costa College, and now is an assistant coach at Miramar College.

The son of parents from Ghana, Amoaku wanted to connect his passion for basketball with their heritage. So in 2010 he founded the African Youth Basketball Organization, holding annual camps in Ghana to identify talent with the goal of bringing them to the States in high school to develop.

One of those raw pieces of clay with long arms and a thirst for learning was Joel Mensah. And on Saturday, Mensah, now a 6-foot-10 senior-to-be at JSerra Catholic High in San Juan Capistrano rated a four-star prospect by ESPN, orally committed to San Diego State and became the first prep recruit of the Brian Dutcher era.

“It’s a surreal feeling,” said Amoaku, who goes by Coach Ku. “I’ve known the staff at San Diego State. They helped me before I ever knew who Joel Mensah was. This is big for me and for our program, to have maybe our top prospect come to school like San Diego State.


“It’s also a huge deal for the country of Ghana. Kids are going to see him playing in college and try to become the next Joel Mensah.”

Mensah originally dreamed of becoming the next John Mensah, the captain of Ghana’s national soccer team (no relation) who started in victories against the United States in the 2006 and 2010 World Cups.

“I grew up playing soccer like everyone else in Ghana,” said Mensah, who is from Korle Gonno, an impoverished municipality outside the capital of Accra. “But I kept growing taller, and everybody said I should play basketball. I tried it when I was 13 or 14, and I liked it.”

He began playing in the street without a formal hoop, then moved to the outdoor court at a local hospital, then joined a sports academy with a team. He was discovered by Amoaku’s partner in Ghana, and at age 15 – barely a year after he first dribbled a ball instead of kicking one – he was on plane to the States.


“I saw tape of him,” Amoaku said. “I’m mostly looking at fluidity of motion, how they run, how they change direction. I look for length. I look at footwork, that it’s good or it can be good. And Joel had all that.”

Mensah played his first two years at Redemption Christian Academy in Northfield, Mass., then came west to JSerra Catholic. One reason was to be closer to Amoaku. Another reason, Mensah admits, was “the weather.”

He is filling out his 6-10 frame and is comfortable playing in the low block, grabbing rebounds, blocking shots, dunking. But he offers the kind of length and agility and versatility that the Aztecs covet, able to run the floor and drift onto the perimeter with a superb mid-range jumper for his size.

He has largely operated out of the recruiting spotlight, though, and that’s by design.


“I felt like it was best for his development,” Amoaku said. “He needed to grow and make mistakes and play through them. He needed to be somewhere he could get special, one-on-one attention, and he gets that at JSerra. For him and for me, it’s about the end goal. It’s about the finished product.”

Oregon State, Nevada and Santa Clara recruited him heavily on the West Coast while playing AAU ball with the Coastal Elite club based in North County. He also split time with the New York Lightning club and had East Coast schools like Syracuse calling.

The deciding factor?

“The kind of attention they paid me,” said Mensah, who can’t sign a letter of intent until November. “The playing style and the coaching style also.”


SDSU still has two open scholarships for the upcoming season, but one could be filled by Riverside’s Matt Mitchell, a 6-6 wing from the class of 2017 who was released from his letter of intent at Cal State Fullerton last spring and was one of the breakout stars on the summer club circuit.

Mitchell is expected to qualify academically for the 2017-18 season and announce a decision in the next few days, with SDSU and Utah considered the leaders. The first day of fall semester classes at both schools is the following week.


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mark.zeigler@sduniontribune.com; Twitter: @sdutzeigler