You may have noticed that Chris Obekpa did not dress in the St. John’s Red Storm exhibition game on Saturday. Obekpa being in street clothes immediately had the Johnnies fanbase running through all different kinds of speculation, but it was pretty quickly reported that the nation’s best shot-blocker was sitting due to an ankle injury.
Well, now the Red Storm fanbase can take a deep sight of relief, as it is being reported that Chris Obekpa and his precious ankle are not that banged up and that he expects to play in the Red Storm’s opener against NJIT on Friday.
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While it would have been nice to see if Obekpa would be anywhere near as solid as he was in the exhibition opener — where he had a triple-double — it is far more important that he will be ready to play on Friday.
It also forced Steve Lavin to play some really small lineups in the exhibition game. It was then that the Red Storm played their best basketball and the type of lineup that fans of the program were hoping to see more of last year.
Fully expected the Johnnies to play a lot of Jamal Branch, Rysheed Jordan, Phil Greene, D’Angelo Harrison and Chris Obekpa at the same time on the floor this year.