10 to Remember: Spring 2013

He’s been everywhere, man.

Antoine Joubert, one of the best-known high school basketball players to come out of Michigan during the 1980s, has retired as a day-to-day basketball coach, but still gives back while continuing his lifelong dedication to the sport.

From being one of the most heavily recruited high school basketball players in the state, to playing four years at the University of Michigan and being drafted by the Detroit Pistons, to more than a decade of playing professionally overseas and in South America, Joubert remains humble and a fan of the game that has brought him so much in life.

“All of these things happened in my life because of basketball,” he said.

Joubert, who lives in Farmington, retired after the 2023-24 season after spending more than a decade coaching at Oakland Community College. He continues to host basketball camps – something he has done since 1992 – and has operated an AAU basketball program known as The Judge’s Court since 2006.

“The Judge” got the nickname from his older brother long before he was dominating opponents at Detroit Southwestern High School.

“My brother gave me that nickname,” he said. “I was in the locker room after a game and the media heard him call me that, and it stuck. ‘Here comes The Judge.’”

Joubert graduated in 1983 from Detroit Southwestern. He was Michigan’s Mr. Basketball Award winner and a McDonald’s All-American and recruited by nearly everyone from Indiana to Kentucky to UCLA before choosing Bill Frieder and Michigan.

As a high school junior, he averaged 30 points a game. He was even better as a senior, averaging 31.3 points, 14 rebounds and seven assists per contest. In his team’s 1983 Class A Semifinal, he scored 44 points. Two days later he scored 47 in the championship game against Flint Central, a tough 84-80 loss by the Prospectors that still ranks as one of the greatest Finals performances in state history.

“I was trying so hard to win that game,” Joubert said. “It was tough. Flint Central was a tough team.

“Playing in Michigan back those days was really great. The basketball was great, and there were some great coaches throughout the state. We’d go to camps and go play all over. We knew everybody, from Battle Creek to Lansing to Detroit, Ann Arbor, Traverse City. There was great basketball all over, and the kids all knew one another. I’ll never forget my high school career. I really loved it.”

Detroit Southwestern coach Perry Watson had coached Joubert’s uncle.

“He was like family,” Joubert said. “I knew him from when I was really young. He could play, too. He was a good ball player.”

The early 1980s were before the explosion of travel basketball, AAU programs and summer camps and shootouts. Joubert said while he did attend a few camps, including a national event in Indiana, he refined his skills at the Boys Club in Detroit and the legendary St. Cecilia gym that was a stopping point for some of the all-time greatest players from Michigan, from Dave Bing to Magic Johnson.

“That’s where our summer leagues were,” Joubert said. “Those were some great times.”

As his stock rose nationally, he was able to play against high school players like Patrick Ewing and Doc Rivers.

“That really opened my eyes to a lot of things about how tough basketball is,” he said.

He remembers some tremendous battles in the Public School League as well.

“That was a rough league at the time,” he said. “I mean, the talent that came through Detroit was amazing. Every PSL school had two or three guys that were going on to play Division I or Division II basketball. It was so competitive and they had really good coaches, guys that cared and helped players back then.”

Watson helped forge Joubert’s game, but it was his brother, Ezekiel Joubert Jr., who was perhaps Antoine’s greatest influence. He’s also who gave Antoine the nickname Judge, which stuck and continues to live on to this day.

“He was five years older than me, so he put it on me more than a few times,” Joubert said. “I wanted to be like him and do everything like him in sports. Once I could beat him, I thought I could beat anybody in the world.”

While Joubert gravitated to basketball, his first love in sports was baseball.

“That was the first sport I was really good at,” he said. “I had letters from the Tigers, the Cincinnati Reds and Boston Red Sox at 15 years old. Then, I stopped playing.”

After high school, he took his talents to Ann Arbor. His teammates during his four years included Roy Tarpley, Gary Grant and Glen Rice. He was a starter beginning his freshman season and twice was named honorable mention all-Big Ten.

Joubert was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in the sixth round of the 1987 draft but injured his knee during training camp and was released. He was signed by teams from a variety of leagues but found a home when he went to Belgium. In 1990 he went to Mexico to play and made that league’s all-star game. In 1992 he played in Venezuela, where he earned league MVP honors.

“I got lucky,” he said. “My career took off.”

While playing in Europe, Joubert said he got a firsthand look at 7-foot players who could dribble like guards and shoot 3-pointers.

“I could see where the NBA was going to be, and that’s what it is like today,” he said.

Thanks to basketball, Joubert travelled the world.

“It was great. I played in Belgium, France, Spain, Poland, Italy, all through South America, Venezuela, Mexico, in Asia. Ball took me all around the world. I visited Egypt and Africa. I visited Jerusalem and Israel. I mean, I’ve been everywhere. I learned so many other languages and other cultures and made so many friends. It was all because of basketball. I got to travel the world and see how beautiful the world is.”

Because of basketball, he also got an education. He has a master’s degree.

“Basketball has meant a lot to me, still does,” he said.

After retiring as a player, Joubert returned home and started his AAU program. Soon after, he was hired to coach men’s basketball at Oakland Community College.

“It was challenging,” he said. “But I loved it, loved helping kids. I had players that played for years overseas and kids that are really doing well in life. It’s a blessing to see them grow up and become men, get their degrees and move on.”

Joubert remains a big fan of basketball – especially high school basketball. 

“I go to games all of the time,” he said. “I love the tournaments and spending all day in the gym, talking to my friends and watching basketball. I’ll travel. I’m really enjoying myself.”

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PHOTOS (Top) At left, Antoine Joubert puts up a shot during his highlight-filled career at Detroit Southwestern. At right, Joubert coaches Oakland Community College’s men’s basketball team. (Middle) Joubert finished his tenure at OCC in 2023-24. (Southwestern photo courtesy of the Detroit News. OCC photos courtesy of the OCC athletic department.)