BOYS' BASKETBALL: Essa no longer coaching at Bell-Jeff

There are reports from sources at Bell-Jeff of Burbank that boys' basketball coach Eli Essa will no longer be coaching the Guards after 14 years at the helm.

Essa, in Detroit this weekend attending the NCAA Men's Final Four, was the school's longest tenured head coach.

Bell-Jeff went 16-12 this season with a lineup featuring mostly freshmen and sophomores. But concerns over the direction of the program caused the administration to tell Essa before he left for Detroit that they'd be looking for a new head coach for the 2009-10 school year.

Essa, who began his high school coaching career in 1984-85 as an assistant at North Hollywood under Steve Miller, coached Ruben Douglas from 1995-98 at Bell-Jeff. Douglas went on to lead the NCAA in scoring at New Mexico in 2002-03.