The basketball DNA in Patrick Ngongba II’s family reads like a novel that spans three continents, a Category 4 hurricane, a Korean basketball league, and the WNBA — all before he ever picked up a ball himself.
His father, Patrick Ngongba Sr., was born in 1978 in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. He moved to the United States in December 1993, a fifteen-year-old from a landlocked African nation arriving in the mid-Atlantic with a basketball player’s frame and ambition. He attended Calvert Hall College High School in Maryland, then played four seasons of college basketball at George Washington University from 1997 to 2001, a 6-foot-8 power forward and center. After graduating, the elder Ngongba played professionally overseas — first in South Korea’s KBL with the Wonju DB Promy during the 2001–02 season, and later for ASS Rabat in Morocco’s top division.
His mother’s story is equally extraordinary. Tajama Abraham was born on September 27, 1975, on the island of St. Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. She lived there until the age of fourteen, when Category 4 Hurricane Hugo struck on September 17 and 18, 1989. To survive, Tajama took shelter in a commercial refrigerator measuring eight feet by twelve feet, crammed inside alongside her four siblings, her mother, her father, and her grandmother — eight people in a walk-in cooler while the winds outside raged at 140 miles per hour. The family survived. That experience forged something in Tajama that would define the rest of her life.
She went on to play basketball at George Washington University from 1993 to 1997, where she retired as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 2,134 career points — a record that still stands — and was inducted into the GWU Basketball Hall of Fame. She was selected 31st overall in the 1997 WNBA Draft, playing for the Sacramento Monarchs in 1997 and the Detroit Shock in 1998. After her playing career, Tajama built a coaching career that spanned five different schools over two decades: assistant roles at Richmond, VCU, George Washington, and George Mason, plus a five-year stint as head coach at Radford from 2008 to 2013 where she won Big South Conference Coach of the Year honors. She later served as an assistant at Georgetown before returning to George Washington as a coach.
Patrick and Tajama met while playing basketball at GWU. They married in 2003. Basketball was not just the family business — it was the family language.
The extended family tree deepens the legacy further. Tajama’s brother, Faisal Abraham, played at Marquette University, where he ranked among the program’s all-time leading shot blockers at 6-foot-7. Patrick II’s older sister, Naja Ngongba, played college basketball at Radford, Mars Hill University, and Elizabeth City State University, and has represented the U.S. Virgin Islands internationally. His cousin Isaiah Abraham currently plays for Georgetown.
Patrick Ngongba II was born on October 30, 2005, in Manassas, Virginia, and grew up in the Northern Virginia basketball corridor. He began his prep career at Highland High School before transferring to St. Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax — a program with a direct pipeline to Duke that had already produced Jeremy Roach and Trevor Keels. At Paul VI, Ngongba developed into one of the premier centers in the country, a physically imposing post player with soft touch around the rim, underrated passing instincts, and the kind of basketball IQ that comes from growing up in a household where both parents had played at the collegiate and professional levels.
On the Nike EYBL circuit with Team Takeover, Ngongba averaged 12.0 points and 7.4 rebounds per game, shooting nearly 72% inside the arc. A breakout 33-point, 18-rebound, 5-assist performance against Phenom University in late May 2023 opened eyes across the country. He was rated a five-star recruit by ESPN, ranked the #19 overall player nationally and the #3 center in the 2024 class, and was named the best player in the state of Virginia.
Then came the setback that would test the family’s resilience. Ngongba suffered a significant foot injury that required surgery and forced him to miss his entire senior season at Paul VI. For a player whose stock was ascending rapidly, the timing was devastating. But Ngongba’s mother knew something about surviving storms. The family’s approach was patient, disciplined recovery.
After healing, Ngongba tried out for and made the USA Basketball U18 National Team, helping Team USA capture gold at the 2024 FIBA Men’s U18 AmeriCup, where he averaged 4.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game while shooting 66.7% from the field.
On November 4, 2023, Ngongba committed to Duke over Kansas State, Kentucky, Michigan, UConn, and North Texas. Kansas State had recruited him the longest due to his strong ties to coach Jerome Tang, and North Texas had given him his first scholarship offer. But Duke — and the chance to play alongside Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, and Khaman Maluach in what became the consensus #1 recruiting class in America — was the call. Darren Harris, his Paul VI teammate who had already committed to Duke, helped recruit him. Ngongba spoke with Flagg on his visit about forming a dominant frontcourt together.
“As parents, we were looking for coaches who would push Pat outside of his comfort zone,” Tajama told ESPN. “Pat is a composed player who has a steadiness about him and tries to do the little things well.”