Brehm featured in The Southern Newspaper

Brehm Preparatory School and it's new impact on the basketball court was featured in an article this past week in the Southern Newspaper:

"It has taken more than a decade of planning, strategizing and general logistical debate, but Brehm Preparatory School has implemented a new scholarship program this year for student-athletes with learning differences.

Brehm, among the best schools in the country at educating LD students, has welcomed a pair of students from Africa into the scholarship program. Both are ranked among the top 10 basketball players in the state of Illinois, according to ChicagoHoops.com.

"The primary responsibility for any student here is to do the academics," said executive director Rich Collins. "The basketball players we have on the prep team bring a new level of sophistication and talent, which was not on the campus before.

"Therefore, it generates excitement, but the work ethic the athletes are showing toward their academics is, again, primary."

A lot of the buzz surrounds 6-foot-9 freshman Emmanuel Ochenje, who comes to Brehm via the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Bears' power forward is ChicagoHoops.com's No. 1 ranked prospect in the 2012 class and has drawn interest from several schools, including Kentucky, Illinois, Southern Illinois University, Memphis, Oklahoma and LSU.

"We were looking to do a lot of different things," said Brehm head coach Aaron Lee, in his 16th year with the school. "Not just develop our sports program, but to diversify our campus as well as our staff. We took our basketball program from one level to the next and it's become what it is now."

ChicagoHoops.com called Ochenje a "dazzling combination of size, athleticism and skill," while competing on the travel team circuit as a part of the Illinois Titans, also coached by Lee.

"At the beginning, it was kind of different for me," Ochenje said of attending Brehm. "As soon as you get used to it, you start loving it and you just can't help it."

Making the Bears even more impressive are 6-7 forward James "Bamba" Siakam and 6-3 point guard Bruce Barron, who transferred to Brehm this season. Siakam is ChicagoHoops.com's ninth-ranked prospect in the 2011 class, while the Chicago Sun Times ranks him 11th.

"My main goal of coming to the United States was to get a good education," Siakam said. "I really want to improve my ball-handling, shot-blocking and attacking the basket."

Siakam, a native of Cameroon, put up 17 points, and went 3-for-4 from the charity stripe, in Brehm's 79-75 loss to Rend Lake College on Nov. 17. The Bears have been playing junior colleges for competition this season and led the Warriors 40-31 at halftime.

"We've got a pretty good nucleus of young kids that we think is going to give us an opportunity to be very successful in the years to come," Lee said. "We've got some very versatile kids. Our 6-6 kids can play the 2, the 3 and before coming here, some of them played the 4. In fact, Bruce played the post position at some time before coming here."