A look at St. John's potential walk-ons

St. John's bad news about ineligible players has become a good opportunity for a select five players. In the wake of three Red Storm players being ruled ineligible by the NCAA, the already thin Johnnies need to expand their roster and increase team depth through walk-ons, until those players can become eligible - possibly in the second semester.

Keep in mind that the Johnnies probably already needed a pair of big-man walk-ons for practice competition and to body up opponents when God'sGift is in foul trouble. 

Perhaps that's why the Red Storm have so many interesting players already on campus. Thanks to some guesswork, the ESPN NY and NY Daily News articles, and a few little birdies, we can take a look at the possible (probable?) walk-ons, after the jump.

Note that these names are not confirmed, so some of these names could be wrong. But here are the names of the walk-ons you may need to learn learn before Tuesday's game action. With such a depleted roster, some of them will see a solid amount of playing time this year.

Gerard Rivers

We've known about Gerard Rivers since the summer, who came from Paraclete High in Lancaster, California to walk-on to the Red Storm. Per his Max Preps profile, he's a 6 foot shooting guard who scored 15.3 points per game with 3 assists, 2.2 steals and 4 rebounds for the 22-6 Paraclete Spirits.

Jeff Ashamole

Listed at 6'8, 240 pounds at Middlesex County Community College, Ashamole (in the white in the photo at left by Eric Sucar, GM News), didn't play his first year - possible redshirt? - but saw minutes in seven games in 2009-2010, averaging 7.1 points on 43% shooting (48% from the line), with 5.6 rebounds per game and 2 blocks per game. He didn't play after the December 12th contest against Camden County College.

Ashamole played high school ball for North Brunswick HS in New Jersey, and played AAU ball for Team NJABC. In high school, he made the "All Windex Team" and the "All Defensive Team" per GM news, which covers Middlesex County. He has a basketball playing brother named Robbie Ashamole.

Samuel Sealy-James

James is a big man, listed at 6'8". He is a freshman from Class AA Longwood High School in Long Island, listed as the tallest player of the bunch he was known at Longwood HS as Sam Sealy. No word on his statistics, but he is tall. Here is Longwood's 2010 high light video. You can see Sealy/ Scaly at 1.17; 1.41; 2.25; 3.20; 3.51 (I think); 5.12; 5.53 (I think); 6.14; 8.58.

Jody Card

Card is a 6'1", 26 year old Army veteran, who has enrolled as a freshman this fall. He came back from a stint in Iraq. Good to see he is (assmedly) putting that GI Bill money to good use. Card is also nice enough to put a reel of him working out on You Tube.

First, the video of Card practicing in what I assume is Iraq.

And Card working out in the gym:

Clearly, Card wants another shot at hoops. He should be an interesting story.

Chuck Anakwenze

Chuck Anakweze is a 6'5" wing who attended Division II Minnesota State- Moorhead, originally from Inglewood CA. He attended the Patterson School in North Carolina. He tore his ACL after two years in Minnesota, and transferred to St. John's for the academics and to be closer to the New York job market. Anakweze is also kind enough to have YouTube highlights of him dunking.

There are about another 15 very short videos of him in the midst of game action.

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See the Baselines series - preseason looks at this year's roster