St. John's Red Storm Looking To Recruit More Big Men
Steven Branscombe, USATSI

 

St. John’s Red Storm men’s basketball head coach Chris Mullin has been really high on adding more size to his squad.

After a disappointing 2015-2016 season in his first year as head coach of the St. John’s Red Storm men’s basketball squad, Chris Mullin has been busy trying to add more depth in his roster, not only for this upcoming year but beyond too.

It seems like Mullin is trying to form a team with a big front-court.

St. John’s already has a 2017 commit in center Zach Brown, who committed to the Queens campus on July 21. But they are certainly not done yet.

Mullin and assistant coach Matt Abdelmassih made a visit to New Jersey to see big man prospects Precious Achiuwa (2019) and Isah Mohammad (2020) for the near future. Both of them just started at St. Benedict’s High in NJ as transfer students.

Achiuwa is 6’8″ and is the younger brothers of former St. John’s forward God’sgift Achiuwa. Precious is ranked No. 22 in the 2019 ESPN 25.

Both coaches also looked in on elite 2018 big man Naz Reid and 2019, 6’6″ guard/forward Khalil Whitney.

Then last week, St. John’s was set to host Moses Brown, who is 7’1″ and is from the Class of 2018 from Archbishop Molloy and New Heights in AAU and also 6’10” Class of 2019 Aidan Igiehon of Lawrence Woodmere Academy.

St. John’s already has rising sophomore Yankuba Sima (6’11”) and All-Freshman honoree Kassoum Yakwe (6’7″). Both of them had solid years, averaging 5.7 and 5.3 rebounds per game. Sima led the team in rebounds despite missing a few games because of injury.

The Red Storm still have 6’9″ Amar Alibegovic and added 6’9″ forward Richard Freudenberg and 6’11” redshirt sophomore Tariq Owens for this upcoming season as well as Zach Brown.

Putting a team with a big front-court is always an advantage, so St. John’s will definitely add more size and depth for this upcoming season and probably beyond that too (considering recent activity).

Now the question is how will Mullin utilize his big men and how effective they will be in terms of inside presence, interior defense, and even in the mid-range game.

If all goes well and if Sima continues to develop and Owens is effective, who knows. It could convince future big men to want to want to come to St. John’s.

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Other than God, sports are my biggest love. My teams are the Mets, Knicks, NY Giants, NY Rangers and St Johns basketball (St. John's alumni). I especially love the Mets like crazy, more than any other team and seeing them win the World Series would be a dream come true and definitely the best sports moment. The Knicks are a close second. I also like to write, so combine that with my passion for sports equals a perfect scenario, I would love to do sports writing long term. If not that, then probably sports broadcasting, cause I love to talk sports as well. In addition to writing for ESNY, I'm also currently writing for Metsmerizedonline.