St. Johns fired head coach Steve Lavin after the Red Storm's first round exit in the 2015 NCAA Tournament and brought in St. Johns alum Chris Mullin to replace him. Mullin was expected to have a senior leader in his first season in Chris Obekpa but that will not be the case as Obekpa announced earlier in the offseason that he would transfer. Now Obekpa has reportedly made his decision as to where he will play his final season of college basketball and that will be UNLV according to Rob Dauster of NBCSports.com.
Obekpa posted a picture on his Instagram account of a guy in a cowboy hat wearing a UNLV belt buckle with the caption "REBIRTH" which was the first indication that UNLV was his choice but since then many different sources have reported that Obekpa did in fact make his choice.
This isn't the first time Obekpa declared that he would transfer from St. Johns as he did the same thing last year but eventually decided to come back to the school for his junior season according to Matt Norlander of CBS Sports. This time Obekpa is legitimately leaving St. Johns to become a Runnin' Rebel. The reported reason for Obekpa's transfer is that he clashed with the new coaching staff and didn't like the new stricter rules they were implementing.
Obekpa ran into trouble last season when he was suspended for the Red Storm's NCAA Tournament game for marijuana use and that put his team in a huge bind. The 6 foot-10 center was one of the best rim protectors in the nation last season and without him St. Johns was at a severe disadvantage against San Diego State in a game they ended up losing.
In his three seasons at St. Johns Obekpa averaged just 4.5 points per game but he made up for it with his rebounding and blocked shots. Obekpa averaged 6 rebounds and 3.4 blocks per game in his St. Johns career and has the school's all-time records for career blocks, blocks in a single season and most blocks in a single game.
Obekpa will have to sit out the 2015-16 season due to the NCAA transfer rule but when he does play his senior year at UNLV in 2016-17 he will be joining a team that should be supremely talented. UNLV's 2015 recruiting class is ranked ninth in the nation and some of those players should still be around plus they already received a commitment from the number 30 overall prospect in the 2016 recruiting class in Justin Jackson according to 247Sports. Obekpa will be a nice addition for the Runnin' Rebels in 2016 as he is a premier rim protector and those are not very easy to find.
