Rivard, Ejim to Play at Nike Global Challenge

New England Recruiting Report | Monday, August 3rd, 2009

The Nike Global Challenge kicks off this Friday in Oregon.  The event is the culmination of Nike’s grassroots calendar for the year and features 30 of the top high school players in the country, as chosen from the Lebron James Skills Academy.  Those 30 players are split into three teams that compete against five international teams in an 8 team tournament. 

This year’s international group consists of teams from Canada, Serbia, Senegal, Brazil, and an Asian All-Star team.  

The Canadian squad has a distinct New England flavor with Northfield Mount Hermon’s Laurent Rivard and Brewster Academy’s Melvin Ejim being selected. 

The Canadians open the tournament with a match-up against Serbia on Friday night and will play the corresponding winner or loser of the USA Midwest/Senegal match-up on Saturday. 

For Rivard the Global Challenge will mark the end of an incredibly busy summer in which he has traveled over a total of 30,000 miles. 

After playing with Expressions for the spring travel season, he returned to Toronto for the Canadian u19 national team’s training camp in early June.  The team traveled to Paris, France for a warm-up tournament before playing in the FIBA u19 World Championships in New Zealand from July 2nd – 12th. 

Immediately after fulfilling his committed to the national team, Rivard flew from New Zealand to West Virginia to meet up with his Expressions Elite team at for the Triple S Harley Davidson Showcase.  He has spent a total of 6 days at his home in Canada since the beginning of the summer. 

Rivard currently claims close to 15 division I offers from schools including Bucknell, Vermont, Northeastern, Davidson, Holy Cross, Elon, and the vast majority of the Ivy League according to NMH head coach John Carroll.  He also continues to hear from Notre Dame. 

Ejim spent the month of July starring with Team Takeover’s Canadian team as they traveled to West Virginia and Las Vegas among other stops. 

Ejim named Iowa State, Boston College, and George Washington as his favorite three schools in a recent story by the Cyclone Sports Report and also mentioned Butler as a school that he’s talking with.