New Bradley Commit: Michael Ochereobia

Michael Ochereobia has been a little under the radar, but he has been followed for several months by those who knew he was a target for recruitment. He is originally from England - previously an African emigree - and is training at the Canarias basketball Academy (CBA).
The CBA is run by a guy with tons of American coaching experience...
Rob Orellana...read about him and the staff here...
http://www.cbacademy.org/
http://www.cbacademy.org/index.asp?modulo=02&idioma=en

Michael Ochereobia's name has finally been made known in a little blurb in the paper...but our staff has been watching and following the guy for nearly the last year. He has now been offered and has verballed to Bradley and is awaiting official clearance - so you know how that goes...

Here is their roster
http://www.cbacademy.org/index.asp?modulo=05&idioma=en

Michael Ochereobia
http://www.cbacademy.org/index.asp?modulo=05&idioma=en&id=28

He is a true center, 6-8 (sometimes listed as 6-9) and has come on strong in the past 12 months and beginning to get widespread attention...
Several other D-I coaches have flown to the Canary Islands to check him out and a few have offered.
By the way ..for those who have said that Coach Jim Les has NOT been out recruiting, then just check this out from a few weeks ago...
http://twitter.com/ChristopheEPcom/status/11202112933

This guy who writes about Euro prospects has been e mailing me on the Canarias kids...he also noted other top coaches going there to the Canarias to check out Ochereobia...
http://twitter.com/ChristopheEPcom/status/12299558750
http://twitter.com/ChristopheEPcom/status/12207379877

But Michael Ochereobia gave and kept his committment to Bradley!!

That was more than a month ago and Coach Les has actually traveled tens of thousands of miles recruiting while some thought he was laying on a beach vacationing...goes to show the extent of the misinformation people try to spew...


It's pretty obvious that while those who were uninformed were making stupid claims that Jim Les had been fired or bought out, and others were claiming he was sunning himself in Cancun....
in truth he was traveling the WORLD to help land recruits!
Just goes to show how absolutely out of the loop and misguided some of those posts were. And kudos to our staff for keeping this all quiet, as you never know how those other recruiters would have tried like crazy to screw this up since they need big men, too.
Great job to all involved who knew of Ochereobia through the notes on the internet as far back as months, yet were able to keep it quiet.

Here is a fine site to check out Ochereobia and other Euro prospects..
http://www.europeanprospects.com/

Note the site has Ochereobia listed thus...
Michael Ocherobia – Interested School: Bradley
2m04 – Center
Current team: Canarias Basketball Academy (Spain)http://www.europeanprospects.com/information-database/ncaa-recruiting-europe-based-played/#more-1101

More on Ochereobia...
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/recruiting/tracker/player?recruitId=104738&season=2010

http://netscoutsbasketball.com/blog/2010/02/26/english-players-at-the-national-prep-school-basketball-invitational-canarias-basketball-academy/

In the one tourney he came and played in the US... in four games, Ochereobia averaged good numbers........
This tourney was held in Kingston, RI back in early Feb. 2010...and many will recall we knew that some of our coaching staff was there to watch Ocherobia as well as Danny Lawhorn.
Here is the premium article that says the Bradley staff was there watching at the prep tourney...
http://bradley.scout.com/2/948476.html

Here are three other stories on the tourney...
These two mention that coaches from Bradley are there--
http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/944246.html
http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/944501.html

This one mentions the talent that the Canarias Academy has...
"The Canarias Academy nearly knocked off South Kent on Saturday. They have a few kids that particularly stood out..(and have)the look of a high major prospect"
http://scouthoops.scout.com/2/944647.html

Ochereobia's four game averages were...
12 ppg, 7 rpg, on 60% shooting and 75% from the FT line.

There is one other player at Canarias I might also love to see here, Patrik Auda, a 6-9 kid who plays the wing and averaged 18 ppg in the same prep tourney...but he's a lot like TB & SH so right now is lesser priority...


BTW - for those who have unknowingly made reference to the Canary Islands as named for canaries or birds....the truth is far different. Maybe read up on it before demonstrating an uninformed state.
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/funfacts/canaryislands.htm