Birch, Ledo Earn Recognition in Baltimore

May 14th, 2010
New England Recruiting Report

Expressions represented New England well this weekend as they traveled to Maryland for the Nike Baltimore Elite Invitational.

Khem Birch and Ricardo Ledo both earned rave reviews from their performance at last weekend’s Nike Baltimore Elite Invitational. 

In fact, both players were selected to the tournament’s all-tournament team as selected by the staff at I95BAllerz.com. 

Michael Gilchrist, the consensus top player in the national class of 2011, was the tournament MVP while Ledo was named to the All-Tournament First team and Birch the All-Tournament Second team. 

Expressions ultimately fell to Gilchrist’s Team Final squad in the quarterfinal, 73-70.  Despite the loss, the game was a bit of a coming out party for Ledo as he and the nation’s top ranked player went head to head with Ledo finishing with 25 points. 

Ron Baily, editor and publisher of I95Ballerz had this to say about Ledo’s performance:

“This guy gets the ‘who’s he’ award, given a penchant to pat, shoot, finish, and scrap…Ledo showed the chops to battle players like Gilchrist tooth and nail.” 

“Ric has so many ways to score,” said Expressions program director Todd Quarles, “and I think when people saw him taking Gilchrist off the dribble like that it opened up some eyes.” 

Ledo’s match-up with Gilchrist wasn’t the only intriguing one-on-one contest in the Expressions/Team Final clash as Khem Birch also went head to head with Rakeem Christmas, the number five ranked player in the class according to ESPN. 

Birch, dubbed the runner-up for Baily’s “who’s he” award scored 18 points in that game, reportedly getting the better of the highly acclaimed post player and earned praise as a “fast rising and developing player.” 

“It was the best offensive game Khem has had,” said Quarles.  “He’s been working hard to develop his skill set and it showed in that game.  He was making jumpers from 12 and 15 feet, facing up his defender from the elbow, and going by him.”