The hype around St. John’s continues to grow.
St. John’s built the best transfer-portal class in college basketball this offseason, according to a ranking published Monday by ESPN’s Jeff Borzello.
With touted transfers including Ian Jackson, Bryce Hopkins and Joson Sanon signed on to play for coach Rick Pitino this fall, St. John’s edged out Kentucky, Michigan, Louisville and Florida in ESPN’s analysis.
This comes after the recruiting website 247 Sports gave the Red Storm’s transfer class the highest grade of any school.
“There’s about seven of them that we’re ecstatic about,” Pitino said last week at Yankee Stadium of his incoming transfers. “Seven or eight of them.”
The new players are expected to provide a scoring punch for a team that shot just 30.1% on 3-pointers last season.
Jackson, a former five-star prospect from the Bronx, averaged 11.9 points per game and shot 39.5% on 3-pointers as a freshman at North Carolina last season.
The wings Sanon, who transferred from Arizona State, and Oziyah Sellers, who comes from Stanford, are both accomplished shooters, too.
Hopkins, a senior forward, averaged at least 15.5 points and 7.7 rebounds per game in each of the last three seasons at Providence, though the last two were both compromised by knee injuries.
And junior forward Dillon Mitchell — formerly of Texas and Cincinnati — arrives with a reputation as one of college basketball’s better defenders.
“I think they’re extremely athletic,” Pitino said of his revamped roster. “We improved our shooting, which needed to be addressed. I think we’ll be a very good 3-point shooting team this year, and we’ve just got to match the defense we played last year.”
That infusion of talent will need to replace leading scorer RJ Luis Jr., who entered the NBA Draft, as well as outgoing seniors Kadary Richmond, Deivon Smith and Aaron Scott.
But St. John’s is bringing back senior power forward Zuby Ejiofor, who last season was an All-Big East First Team selection and the conference’s Most Improved Player.
“This talent may not be the talent of my 1996 [Kentucky] team, but I think it’s as close to some of the other teams,” Pitino said, referring to his Wildcats team that won an NCAA championship.
Perhaps the biggest uncertainty that St. John’s faces is the lack of a true point guard, but Pitino believes Jackson can handle the position after playing shooting guard at UNC.
“I think Ian can be a great playmaker. I really do. I think he was in high school,” Pitino said.
“I think he has [Tyrese] Haliburton a little bit in him. I think he’s that type of size. He could be a Haliburton. He knows how to get in the lane and make plays.”
St. John’s went 31-5 last season and won its first Big East regular-season championship since 1985 and its first conference-tournament title since 2000. The second-seeded Johnnies were eliminated in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, however, as their shooting deficiencies loomed large in a loss to Arkansas.
Pitino, 72, said he doesn’t expect St. John’s to have as sterling of a record next season after he scheduled what he called “the toughest and best schedule” in school history.
The Red Storm’s non-conference slate includes games against Alabama and Ole Miss at Madison Square Garden; as well as neutral-site bouts with Kentucky, Iowa State and Baylor.
“I want to find out early on where we are, because sometimes it’s fool’s gold,” Pitino said. “You play some weaker opponents and you beat them, and you think you’re much better than you really are. I want to find out exactly where we are when we play early in the season.”
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