Ayim Joins Canada's National Team As Alternate
9/7/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Sept. 7, 2010
MALIBU, Calif.- Former Pepperdine women's basketball standout and three-time All-WCC first team selection Miranda Ayim (London, Ontario, Canada/Saunders Secondary) has been selected to Canada's Senior Women's National Team as an alternate and will be playing throughout Europe over the next month in preparation for 2010 FIBA World Championship.
A 6-3 forward with four years of national team experience, Ayim received news of her appointment Saturday from head coach Alison McNeill, and then boarded a plane with her teammates headed for Paris Monday night. The team arrived in France Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. local time and immediately hopped on a two-hour bus ride north to Lille at the Belgian border where its hotel is located.
The 12th-ranked Canadians will be in France through Saturday, competing in a series of national team exhibition games against Japan and Belarus as well as the host nation. The SWNT will then head to Athens, Greece the weekend of September 18 and 19 for a pair of exhibition games against the Greek national team for its final tune-up.
The 2010 FIBA World Championship for Women takes place September 23 to October 3 in the Czech Republic. The United States is ranked No. 1 by FIBA heading into the tournament.
Ayim's time with the Canadian National Team began in 2005, when she played in all five games of the USBA Youth Festival. From there, Ayim competed at the 2006 FIBA Americas U18 Qualifier and a year later helped Canada to its best ever finish for an age-group women's team (sixth) at the 2007 FIBA U21 World Championships.
Ayim's most recent appearances with the national team took place in 2008, competing in three exhibition games against the Chinese Olympic Team. In game three, Ayim scored 12 points on 6-of-9 shooting and grabbed two rebounds.
The 2009-10 Division I-AAA Women's Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year, Ayim graduated from Pepperdine this past spring with a degree in public relations. She also was named to the WCC All-Academic first team for the third time in 2010 and made the CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District first team.
In her final season at Pepperdine, Ayim led the Waves with 15.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and 2.7 blocked shots. Twice she was named WCC Player of the Week and was voted to the All-Tournament teams at the WCC Championships and the Arizona State Classic. She helped Pepperdine to 20 wins and a spot in the postseason WNIT.
Ayim became Pepperdine's all-time leader in career blocked shots with 182, and appears prominently elsewhere in the career records lists, ranking fifth in field goals made (581), sixth in games played (119), eighth in points (1,377) and eighth in rebounds (735).
Follow Canada's Senior Women's National Team via the internet at www.basketball.ca.
