Frank Gilroy still remembers the first time he saw Wayne McKoy with his own two eyes. This was March of 1975, at the old Top Eight Classic that used to determine the very best basketball team in New York state. Gilroy was a precocious sophomore at Holy Cross High then, 6-foot-6 with game, clearly ticketed for Division I.

Then he saw the star sophomore for Long Island Lutheran High on the floor at St. John’s Alumni Hall. He was 6-8, maybe 250. And when he took the floor, he took your breath away.

“Wayne,” Gilroy says, “he was something else.”

Wayne McKoy died Wednesday at his home in Bayside. He was 64. He was an excellent player for St. John’s from 1977-81, a cornerstone of the 1979 team that came within a bucket of the Final Four. He scored 1,534 points for the Redmen, averaged over seven rebounds a game across 117 career games, blocked what was then a school record 164 shots.