St. John's scholarship chart: updated for April 3/ Chris Obekpa departure

Now that Chris Obekpa [LINK], JaKarr Sampson [LINK] and Max Hooper [LINK] have left St. John's, joining the graduated God`sGift Achiuwa, Orlando Sanchez and Marc-Antoine Bourgault, St. John's has six open scholarships.

No, there are no rumors of where Steve Lavin, Tony Chiles and the rest of the staff will turn to to fill these slots besides the recruitment of Adonis de la Rosa. And De la Rosa is no done deal - Pittsburgh and Georgetown have been sniffing around, checking to see if the hefty big man has high-major potential.

It could be a long and small season next year, with Christian Jones and Sir`Dominic Pointer playing "center" and "power forward" for 40 minutes, lots of pressing, and a season-long struggle to end opponent possessions.

Or perhaps Lavin and crew have some late-recruiting-season rabbits to pull out of the proverbial recruiting hat (what would that hat look like, anyway?) to shore up a roster almost as thin as the 2011-2012 season.

And looking more closely - it's almost the same players, but with more experience! The players who have left the program this spring, with the exception of Achiuwa, came in the somewhat-heralded 2012 class.

All of those players signed in March or later; so it's possible to fill roster holes late. But Sampson, Obekpa and Balamou (who is still in the program) were being recruited during the season, as were Sanchez and Bourgault.

It will be hard to ramp up recruiting to uncover high-major contributors at this late stage.

Updated scholarship chart