Yves Pons


Yves Pons is a French college basketball player for the Tennessee Volunteers of the Southeastern Conference.

Early life and career

Pons was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and did not know his biological parents. When he was four years old, he was adopted by a French couple, Babeth and Jean-Claude Pons, and immediately moved to France with them. Pons attended French sports institute INSEP, in Paris, and played for its affiliated club Centre Fédéral de Basket-ball in the Nationale Masculine 1, the amateur third-tier division of French basketball.
Pons decided to play college basketball in the United States for Tennessee under head coach Rick Barnes, after being recruited by assistant coach Michael Schwartz. He chose the Volunteers over offers from Florida and Texas Tech. He became the first four-star recruit to play for Barnes at Tennessee and the first French men's basketball player in school history.

College career

Pons suffered an ankle injury in his Tennessee debut, a win over Presbyterian, and was limited to four minutes. In his freshman season, he played 24 games off the bench and averaged 5.2 minutes per game. As a sophomore, Pons scored a season-high 10 points against Eastern Kentucky in his first career start. He was featured on SportsCenter's top 10 plays for a two-handed block during the game. In February 2019, Pons suffered a facial fracture in a collision in practice and underwent a corrective procedure. Pons averaged 2.2 points per game as a sophomore, but put in a lot of work on his game after the season. He saw considerable improvement as a junior, scoring a career-high 15 points in his season debut versus UNC Asheville and eclipsing that mark in his next game after scoring 19 versus Murray State. At the conclusion of the regular season, Pons was named SEC Defensive Player of the Year. As a junior, Pons averaged 10.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 1.1 assists per game. Following the season, he declared for the 2020 NBA draft.

National team career

Pons won a gold medal with France at the 2014 FIBA Europe Under-16 Championship in Latvia, after averaging 3.8 points per game. He averaged 10.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per game at the 2016 FIBA Under-17 World Championship in Zaragoza, Spain, as his team finished in sixth place. In 2019, Pons joined France at the FIBA U20 European Championship in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he averaged 2.6 points per game for the fourth-place team.

Career statistics

College