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St. John’s lands highly regarded JUCO forward Ahmed

Chris Mullin

Chris Mullin

AP

On the day after Christmas the St. John’s basketball program received some very good news on the recruiting front, as one of the top junior college prospects in the nation made his pledge to Chris Mullin’s program.

6-foot-7 small forward Bashir Ahmed, a native of the Bronx who’s currently a sophomore at Hutchinson CC in Kansas, verbally committed to St. John’s Saturday morning. News of his commitment was first reported by the New York Post, and for quite some time the Red Storm were viewed as the favorites to land Ahmed. In addition to St. John’s, Ahmed also took official visits to Cincinnati and Texas.

One of the keys to his recruitment was the presence of assistant coach Matt Abdelmassih, who began recruiting Ahmed while on Fred Hoiberg’s staff at Iowa State. That relationship carried over after Abdelmassih made the move to Queens, and in the end the St. John’s program has a second highly regarded commitment with guard Shamorie Ponds being the first.

Ahmed’s currently averaging 19.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game at Hutchinson, and he fills a position of need for St. John’s. Both Durand Johnson and Ron Mvuoika are graduate students playing their final season of eligibility, opening the door for Ahmed to play a lot of minutes in 2016-17. The Red Storm are also still in the running for prospects such as five-star guard Rawle Alkins and 6-foot-8 small forward Richard Freudenberg.