When Eddie Richardson met Yvonne Ejim, she was a 14-year-old athlete who he says was all the time keen to place within the additional work to enhance herself as a basketball participant.
That was round six years in the past, when Ejim first made her strategy to the Genesis basketball program on the Edge College in Calgary.
Now, the 21-year-old has emerged as a significant star within the NCAA March Insanity basketball event, as a ahead with the quantity 4 ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs in Spokane, Wash.
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When Ejim mentioned she’d do one thing, she’d comply with by means of with it, Richardson, the director of basketball at Edge College, mentioned in an interview with the Calgary Eyeopener.
“She’d all the time be within the health club early earlier than observe began,” he mentioned.
“We knew she was a star as a younger lady, however she continues to point out that she will’t be stopped.”
Richardson mentioned Ejim’s work ethic is what’s taken her to a stage that many do not get to. The six-foot-one senior has been dominant by means of Gonzaga’s first two video games within the event.
On Saturday evening, she put up a double-double — two main statistic classes in double digits — scoring 25 factors and grabbing 14 rebounds to push her group previous the 13 seed UC Irvine Anteaters, and into the second spherical.
She repeated that feat once more on Monday evening in a win towards the five-seed Utah Utes, flattening 17 factors and 13 rebounds to assist ship the Bulldogs into the March Insanity Candy 16.
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—@ZagWBB
Ejim is the highest-scoring Canadian NCAA ladies’s participant for the second straight 12 months, averaging 19.8 factors and eight.5 rebounds per sport this common season.
On prime of that, she was a 2023 participant of the 12 months finalist, and a finalist for the Katrina McClain Award, an honour that acknowledges the highest energy ahead within the nation.
These near her, nonetheless, say it is who Ejim is off the courtroom that units her aside.
On Canada’s east coast in Antigonish, Nova Scotia — round 5,000 kilometres away from Spokane — Deon Ejim has been gathering across the TV with pals to cheer his youthful sister on.
Deon, a basketball participant who performs for Calgary’s CEBL group the Surge, says his youthful sister discovered issues throughout her upbringing that mirror in her sport.
Rising up, Yvonne was the oldest feminine sibling in her family.
“That has turned her to being an individual that you would be able to rely on, on and off the courtroom,” Deon mentioned.
“And I believe it exhibits in her management once I watch her play.”
No matter how her group fares on this 12 months’s March Insanity event, Ejim will probably be again for one more 12 months of school basketball subsequent season. And attending to the subsequent stage of the game is already inside attain.
“There’s been loads of speak concerning the WNBA, there’s been loads of scouts and groups reaching out,” Richardson mentioned. “In my eyes, she will do something she desires to do and she or he’s confirmed that popping out of Calgary.”
