Jimmy Sorunke, a 6-foot-10 freshman basketball star for Rockville High School in Rockville, Maryland, might be 20 years old and dominating opponents years younger than him, a Deadspin investigative report suggests.
Deadspin found a 2016 article on a Nigerian blog that hyped up a basketball player whose name was similar to Sorunke’s, who looks just like Sorunke and whose birthday was listed as “11th of June 1997.”
Sorunke played in a 3-on-3 tournament in Lagos run by FIBA, the rules of which stated all players must be between 18 and 35 years old. Deadpsin also found other circumstantial evidence, including some striking similarities between the social media accounts of Nigeria’s Olujimi Sorunke Abayomi and the supposed Rockville 16-year-old.
Joe Boncore, who appears to be Sorunke’s handler or agent of sorts, told Rockville’s coach that he was Sorunke’s legal guardian. Boncore first told Deadspin that the player in the Nigerian blog profile was a different person. After being shown more evidence, Boncore instead said the blog post was an effort to get Sorunke recruited to play in college but the player’s birth certificate is “one thousand percent right.”
Rockville’s principal did not comment for the Deadspin story. Sorunke’s dominance on the court helped turn around a team that went 2-22 the prior year to win its district championship in 2018.
• Adam Zielonka can be reached at azielonka@washingtontimes.com.
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