St. John's lands Syracuse transfer Donnie Freeman from portal
Syracuse forward Donnie Freeman pulls down a rebound against North Carolina during the first half of an NCAA basketball game on Feb. 2 in Chapel Hill, N.C. Credit: AP/Chris Seward
St. John’s landed a high-impact forward and brought back a fan favorite on Monday.
The Red Storm landed a commitment from Syracuse transfer Donnie Freeman, a 6-9 forward who averaged 16.5 points and 7.2 rebounds as a sophomore for the Orange, according to a source.
Freeman opted for St. John’s over Kentucky.
And Lefteris Liotopoulos has decided against transferring and announced that he would be back for his junior season in a social media post that concluded, “I’m back!” Liotopoulos played in 30 games for St. John’s this past season and averaged 2.9 points in 7.8 minutes. Dubbed by Storm coach Rick Pitino as “Lefty,” he got some of the biggest cheers at the Garden when he came into games.
Freeman planned to announce the news on Tuesday, the source said. The source described him as “one of the pieces to the puzzle that team needs after losing all those seniors.”
St. John’s could be bringing in more of those pieces this week. It hosted 7-foot Serbian center Lazar Stojkovic and 6-8 Utah transfer Kendyl Sanders and is bringing in 7-1 Massamba Diop from Arizona State at the end of the week.
Diop, who averaged 13.6 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.1 blocked shots for the Sun Devils this season has already taken a visit to his other top choice, Gonzaga. Both he and 7-2 Moustapha Thiam of Cincinnati, who was hosted by St. John’s last week, are two of the top-rated centers in the NCAA transfer portal.
Stojkovic is reportedly being courted by Baylor and Indiana, among others. He played this past season professionally in Europe with Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet and BKK Radnicki. The 19-year-old averaged 10.8 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.4 blocked shots in the 2025 EuroLeague Next Generation Tournament.
Sanders averaged 5.2 points and 2.3 rebounds as a freshman this season for the Utes.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
