Brehm Prep

[tornado]

a private school in Carbondale that's been around for 26 years, has just started a top-level basketball program with kids recruited from all over...even two top prospects from Africa.
Note Chicagohoops.com's #9 prospect in 2011

http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/2011rankings.html

and the #1 kid in the Class of 2012 is also a Brehm Prep kid (Emmanuel Ochenje)

Brehm is not an IHSA member, and is also not an approved non-member, meaning NO IHSA high school can schedule or play them.
Brehm does not follow IHSA rules in regards to player qualifications and eligibility, and they are playing the foreign kids who would not otherwise be eligible per IHSA.
They are planning to play junior college teams, out of state prep teams, and college JV teams.
So far they are 1-7 with losses to Rend Lake (twice), Vincennes, Shawnee, SLCC-Flo Valley & Wabash but they did beat Kirby HS in a Memphis tournament before losing to Oakhaven HS there.
so really their record is 1-1 vs. high schools.
...they have only 7 players on the roster and only 6 played in the Rend Lake game

http://www.thesouthern.com/articles/2008/11/28/sports/26773625.txt

James Siakam is #23, Emmanuel Ochenje is #33

http://www.tristate-media.com/articles/2008/11/12/mtcarmelregister/sports/sports1.txt

another pic of Ochenje in their cafeteria



here the coach talks about how a couple of their parents have bankrolled the upgrade to a prep school basketball team and playing out of state teams, other prep teams, and even juco teams.

http://brehmschool.blogspot.com/2008/11/coach-talks-about-brehm-bears.html

[doug shank's crossover]

I'm always skeptical of such programs where there are few if any "controls" in place to facilitate academics. Smells like Boys to Men Academy to me....maybe I'm wrong.

[tornado]

There is a report that Brehm's James Siakam...a fine player who is getting intense interest...
is having serious difficulties getting actual offers because of problems with his "transcript"...meaning nobody actually seems to know where he went to school before last year.

[basketballshadow]

I'm always skeptical of such programs where there are few if any "controls" in place to facilitate academics. Smells like Boys to Men Academy to me....maybe I'm wrong.

Brehm is no where even close to a anything like boys to men. IT is a wonderful school for students with all sorts of learning disabilities and has been around for years. They aren't some factory like b2m was.

[tornado]

I have well detailed in previous posts how few of the BTMA kids ever got qualified, and how even fewer ever did diddly-squat in college, but the sudden rise of Brehm with lots of foreign and transfer students does look and sound like a familiar (eg: BTMA, DCS) story...

[basketballshadow]

i know all the trouble with b2m, brehm isnt like that though its a real school for kids with real learning disabilities. They dont go out recruiting kids like B2M did

[tornado]

But it is known that tuition for a year at Brehm is $56,280 ...

yes, that's no typo...it costs >$56,000 to go to Brehm for one year.

http://www.brehm.org/tuition.html

so when some student from a poor African country or inner city Chicago kid suddenly shows up at Brehm with all-state caliber basketball talent, there are the same kind of suspicions as when such students showed up at BTMA or Decatur Christian, and it is hard to believe that "Brehm is not like those other prep schools", and "the kids are here for an education not to play basketball".
We heard all those same comments coming from BTMA and DCS, and in the end virtually none of the kids was qualified when they got to college...and most ended at juco. I hope it is different at Brehm.