New St. John’s coach Chris Mullin and assistants Barry “Slice” Rohrssen and Matt Abdelmassih will meet Saturday with two key 2015 targets in Cheick Diallo and Brandon Sampson, sources confirmed to SNY.tv.
The plan is to meet with Diallo in the morning and then fly to Louisiana and meet Sampson later in the day.
The 6-foot-9 Diallo is considering Iowa State, St. John’s, Kentucky, Kansas and Pitt. He was the MVP of the McDonald’s All-American Game and was set to play Friday in the Jordan Brand Classic.
Kansas head coach Bill Self met with Diallo late Friday night after he won MVP in the Jordan Brand Classic according to Evan Daniels of Scout.com and is expected to meet soon with Kentucky coach John Calipari.
“I’m trying to make a decision maybe Jordan Game or after Jordan Game,” he told OregonLive.com. “I wanna know what players are going to the NBA and what players are not going. That’s my big thing.”
Diallo is projected at No. 14 in 2016 by DraftExpress.com.
As for the 6-4 Sampson, he is a former St. John’s commit who decommitted after Steve Lavin left.
SMU, Tulane, LSU, Mississippi State, UCLA, USC, Oklahoma State and VCU are among those to reach out.
“I’m just trying to evaluate everything, all of my options,” he told NOLA.com. “I don’t want to wait too late, but I just don’t wanna jump into it too early.”
Also on Friday, St. John’s went three deep in a meeting with 2016 guard Rawle Alkins, who tweeted a picture of himself with the staff.
For more on St. John’s recruitment of Alkins, read this.
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