Roughly 10 minutes before open practice began on St. John’s Media Day, sophomore guard Federico Mussini and sophomore center Yankuba Sima began taking some warm up shots together.
Mussini and Sima have experienced being both teammates and rivals. Outside of St. John’s basketball, each represented their home country in the U20 FIBA European Championships. Mussini represented Italy and Sima represented Spain.
“It was great, it is always good…to represent my country, see my friends – it has been a long time – I don’t see them. Also to play against Yankuba was really fun,” Mussini said.
In the Championships, Spain won gold and Italy placed fifth after falling to Turkey in the quarterfinals.