RESERVE — From the first day he arrived at East St. John as an assistant basketball coach, Yussef Jasmine said he has felt like home.

“I just feel like I was led here,” said Jasmine, who took over the reins as head coach in 2007, succeeding Charles Julien. “I just felt like it was home from Day One.”

But now, in his 11th season as coach of the Wildcats, Jasmine feels like some things are brand new. For one thing, he has a slew of new starters to mold into basketball players and young men.

“This is probably the first time I’ve had my core group of kids be all new,” Jasmine said. “With the exception of Troy Green, who has played here all four years. He’s now the only senior, but as far as the core group of guys that played last year, he’s the only one back.”

While that youth movement may present some challenges on the court this season, Jasmine is looking forward to it.

“I think this season is probably going to be one of the most rewarding seasons we’ve had just because of the challenges we face,” he said. “I can see it at practice. They’re listening. We’re learning each other. And a lot of my successes as a coach I believe have been on building relationships. I try to get involved in all aspects of their lives.”

Of course, one young man Jasmine molded well is his son, Tre’von Jasmine, a 2015 East St. John graduate and former Wildcats standout who is now playing for Loyola New Orleans. While Jasmine, the son, is transitioning from high school player to college player, Jasmine, the dad, is transitioning from Coach Dad to just dad.

“I was just telling him how I miss having him here,” Jasmine (the dad) said. “It really helped our relationship. The same core principles I brought to the team, I taught to him. Some of the things I would tell the team, he would say ‘he just told me that the other day.’ It made him realize I wasn’t just making it up for him.”

Tre’Von said he is relaxing more as a player now that his coach isn’t also his dad.

“I used to be worried about making mistakes when I was playing with him,” Tre’Von said. “But then again, I kind of miss it because it was real fun playing for him.”

Although he has been invited by both his son and Loyola’s coach, Jasmine said he has resisted the temptation to go watch Tre’Von’s practices.

“He’s a young man now,” he said. “I have to let him go. He’s really seeing the value of the hard work we do here. He was able to transition right away.”

Jasmine knows all about adversity. Six years ago, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He says he is now cancer free.

“I think it was a challenge at the time,” he said. “I always talk to the kids about adversity. When adversity comes in your life, what are you going to do? How are you going to handle it? I just kind of look at it as, that was that adversity I had to go through at that time.”

Now Jasmine faces the new challenge of building a new team of winners. Green is the leader of the team, but it’s obvious there are more than a few talented Wildcats on the court. East St. John improved to 6-6 on Monday after handily beating West St. John, 81-35. Alan Williams led the scoring with 20 points. Green scored 11, and Blake Johnson scored 10. But the Wildcats dropped a tough one on Tuesday, losing to Helen Cox 66-64 in overtime.

“This team is going to be real good,” Jasmine said. “We started kind of up and down. We’d win a big game then come back down. We’re consistently up and down.”