2026-27 Big East Men’s Basketball Summer Vibe Check: St. John’s Red Storm
· Yahoo Sports
Team: St. John’s Red Storm
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2025-26 Record: 30-7, 18-2 Big East
2025-26 Big East Finish: First, one game ahead of UConn.
Final 2025-26 Computer Rankings
NET: #13
KenPom.com: #13
BartTorvik.com: #10
Postseason: The Johnnies toppled UConn by 20, 72-52, in the Big East tournament title game, and that landed them in the NCAA field as a #5 seed. Yes, I know what the computer numbers say, the fact of the matter is that St. John’s didn’t beat an NCAA tournament team until mid-January. St. John’s got to the Sweet 16 with wins over Northern Iowa and Kansas, then bowed out, 80-75, to Duke.
Notable Departures: In total, 10 players from last year’s St. John’s roster are no longer with the team. Only six of them had a rotation role worth mentioning, so that’s slightly better news for the Red Storm. The problem there is that those six are six of STJ’s top seven scorers from last season. They’re all of the top six rebounders on the team. That six-pack includes the top five guys in the assist column. Six of the top seven in steals. It’s A LOT of production heading out the door.
It’s not all tragedies for St. John’s though, as four of them were on their fourth year of eligibility when they enrolled a year ago and it would seem that the coaching staff had no interest in playing the lawsuit game to get any of them eligible to return this season with the new five years/five seasons rules. The most notable senior on last year’s roster was quite obviously Zuby Eijofor, because when you’re the Big East Player of the Year, you’re pretty notable. He led STJ in scoring and rebounding, which isn’t surprising news to you, but he was also tops in assists, which is fascinating information, especially if you remember any of the “next great St. John’s point guard” conversation from summer 2025.
Bryce Hopkins, Providence’s favorite Red Storm player, and Oziyah Sellers were the only other two double digit scorers on the roster last season, and they were also on their final year of eligibility when the season ended last year. Dillon Mitchell rounds out the group of seniors, and he might have been the best glue guy in the Big East last year with 8.3 points and 7.0 rebounds, which was second only to Ejiofor’s rebounding average.
The Red Storm did lose two guys to the transfer portal, both of whom were part-time starters for St. John’s last year. Joson Sanon appeared in all 37 games and averaged 7.9 points and 2.4 rebounds, but he’ll be at West Virginia for his third team in three seasons. Dylan Darling, the hero of STJ’s NCAA tournament win over Kansas, had one more year of eligibility left in his bag, thanks to a Washington State season with just three games played. He averaged 6.9 points, 2.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and a team high 1.4 steals per game, but he’s moved on to Grand Canyon.
Notable Returners: Usually I go by the idea of “did you average 10 minutes per game” as my baseline for notable returning players. Usually this is pretty easy to draw a line. For example, Ian Jackson — the aforementioned guy who was held up as the next great St. John’s point guard — had a big chunk of games in the middle of the season where he started for the Johnnies but only ended up with 19 starts and 18.3 minutes per game. See? Obviously notable returning player after falling just short of 10 points per game last year along with 2.3 rebounds and a bit over an assist. (Again, I note the point guard thing.)
The only other guy that qualifies here is Ruben Prey, who appeared in all 37 games with one start back on November 15th. Officially, he averaged 10.8 minutes per game. As I noted a moment ago, 10.0 is the line, so he’s just over it. However, Prey also had 12 games where he played less than 10 minutes a game, and 10 of them were against Big East opponents, either in the regular season or the conference tournament. He still played 10.3 minutes a night on average in league play, so again, this qualifies…. but he’s riiiiiight there on the edge.
Key Additions: Let’s point out that St. John’s has one less key addition than they thought they did back in April. Donnie Freeman suffered a torn Achilles in June, so his 15.3 points and 7.2 rebounds in 37 career appearances across two seasons for Syracuse doesn’t really mean anything any more.
Given the number of older players being added to the roster this offseason, I’m not going to hold out a lot of expectation that the two guys listed as freshmen are going to contribute that much. I’ll note that one is a 7’1” center, so hey, who knows there, and the other is a 6’11” center that is #118 in the 247 Sports Composite rankings. Both fall into the category of “if they work, they work” but have big ol blinking “might not be useful as Big East big men immediately” lights over their heads, too.
There’s a handful of guys here who will be making their collegiate debuts this season, but they’re not freshmen. St. John’s lists European pros Quinn Ellis (6’5”, 200 lb. senior guard, Sheffield, England), Zsombor Maronka (6’10”, 210 lb. senior forward, Szeged, Hungary), and Babacar Sane (6’7” 235 lb. senior forward, Bignona, Senegal) as seniors even though they’ve never played college basketball before. This is likely due to how they fit into the new age-based eligibility model. You can have whatever feelings you want about their eligibility, especially Ellis, who has played 146 games in either the Italian league or EuroCup/EuroLeague competition over the past three seasons. Actually, maybe the bigger “are we sure he should be eligible?” guy is Sane, who has played 75 career games in the G League, dating back to 2022-23. I’m old enough to remember when electing to play for G League Ignite — like Sane did — ended your college eligbility.
That leaves us with the guys moving from one Division 1 program to another. Tounde Yessoufou (6’5”, 220 lb. sophomore guard, Cotondou, Benin) was great for Baylor last season, putting up 17.8 points and 5.9 rebounds while starting in all 34 of his appearances and playing over 32 minutes a night. He did all that as a freshman, so we can expect big things from him at St. John’s, I think. Avery Brown (6’2”, 190 lb. fifth year guard, Beacon Falls, Connecticut) had an injury shorted final year at Columbia, so that’s how he’s eligible after four years at the New York Ivy League school. He averaged 11.1 points per game for the Lions as a junior. Kyle Cuffe Jr. (6’1”, 190 lb. fifth year guard, Harlem, New York) has the injury on the other side of his eligibility, missing almost all of the 2022-23 season at Kansas. I see how a medical redshirt waiver — he sat out the year before for the Jayhawks as well — keeps him enrolled here. He averaged 7.3 points and 1.8 rebounds as a part-time starter for Mercer last year, which was his career best season after 59 appearances at Syracuse as well.
I’m not sure if we’ll actually see Reed Bailey (6’10”, 235 lb fifth year forward, Harvard, Massachusetts) or Keyshawn Hall (6’7”, 230 lb. fifth year forward, Cleveland, Ohio) play for St. John’s. Bailey has 97 career games played in three seasons at Davidson and then 32 appearances last year for Indiana. He put up big numbers as a junior with the Wildcats at 18.8 points and 6.1 rebounds, but saw things slip a little bit last year for the Hoosiers. His rebounding numbers stayed stable on a per-40 basis, but he went from a 41% three-point shooter to just 25% on four total attempts with Indiana. Hall was at Auburn last year for his fourth stop in four years, but he’s produced at each of the last three. He put up 19.3 points and 7.1 rebounds last season, and the year before at UCF, he actually led the Big 12 in scoring at 18.8 a night. Both guys are currently in the process of waiting out the legal process to activate their fifth years of eligbility because the NCAA essentially asked to get sued over the five years/five seasons rules. My official stance is that these guys should be eligible, but I’m not the judge overseeing their cases.
Coach: Rick Pitino, entering his fourth season at St. John’s and 39th season as a Division 1 head coach. He has record of 81-25 with St. John’s and an overall record of 792-315 after stops at (in reverse order) Iona, Louisville, Kentucky, Providence, Boston University, and, after a six game stint as interim head coach to end a season, Hawaii. He also went 192-220 in two seasons with the New York Knicks and four with the Boston Celtics, and he posted a record of 18-19 in two seasons with Panathinaikos in Greece.
Outlook: I think there are too many question marks on this roster, both in terms of eligibility and how it all fits together, to make definitive statements about how good the Red Storm will or will not be. That’s why I look at BartTorvik.com having St. John’s at #7 in the country going into the season as a little unrealistic and a little bit silly. I get it, that’s what the computer says — even without adding Reed Bailey, who was announced as joining the team in August! — but with just one returning guy who was a big contributor and effectively zero returning starters, I need to see what this looks like on the court before I make declarative statements about the Johnnies.
But it’s Rick Pitino, man.
Since February 20, 2024, he’s posted a record of 68-13. The Johnnies haven’t lost back-to-back games in that stretch of time. They’ve been to the NCAA tournament twice — it was too little, too late in 2024 — and have won a game both times. St. John’s hadn’t won an NCAA tournament game since 2000, which is also the last time that they were on a consecutive tourney appearance run, making it to their third straight. Rick Pitino is doing things that haven’t been done in Queens since before his players were born. Thinking that he’s not going to figure out is a mistake.
It’s just a matter of when he figures it out with this collection of guys. As long as he figures it out before February like what happened in his first year with St. John’s, then they’ll be fine. And honestly, St. John’s fans? The ones who were praying that Chris Mullin and Golden Gate Mike Anderson would figure it out, the ones that remember that Mike Jarvis Elite 8 run in 1999? I presume they’re more than okay with giving Pitino a little bit of runway after back-to-back regular season Big East championships. They can’t all be outstanding seasons, so as long as it extends their tournament streak? That’s probably more than good enough to keep people happy.
The upside of it though…. a third straight regular season title? Going one step past the Sweet 16 that we just saw from them last March? Or farther? If Rick Pitino figures this team out early enough, the sky’s the limit.
But we’ll have to wait and see what they actually look like when the ball goes in the air for real against Monmouth on November 2nd.
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