St. John's next steps: 5 questions facing Rick Pitino's Red Storm this offseason
St. John's coach Rick Pitino talks to players during a timeout in the second half of the team's NCAA college basketball game against UConn in the semifinals of the Big East men's tournament Friday, March 15, 2024. Credit: AP/Mary Altaffer
St. John’s failed to fulfill the primary directive of making the NCAA Tournament. However, it accomplished plenty during its first season under Rick Pitino. Chief among them, it’s become fully-relevant in New York after nearly a quarter century of steady decline.
Nevertheless, Pitino seemed irked at the NCAA Tournament selection committee picking just three Big East teams in a social media post that read, in part, “I totally believe that six teams from the Big East belonged in the field. I know our players along with Providence are totally disappointed with the decisions made. But not having Seton Hall at 13-7 in BE play with wins over the top teams is flat out wrong!”
His approach to the offseason is likely to be informed by those decisions and with Monday’s opening of the transfer portal — odd timing by the NCAA during its premiere event — that starts now. It’s why the Red Storm is passing on the NIT.
Here are five questions facing St. John’s for an offseason that’s really already begun:
Who will remain from the 2023-24 roster?
There isn’t expected to be the kind of roster turnover there was a year ago when Pitino arrived and remade the Red Storm with 12 new players. There are six who were in their final season of eligibility — Nahiem Alleyne, Sean Conway, Jordan Dingle, Daniss Jenkins, Chris Ledlum and Joel Soriano — who are exiting. There is a chance that Dingle could apply for another year of eligibility because the Ivy League cancelled the 2020-21 season because of the pandemic and then would have the option of returning.
From the regular rotation, freshmen Simeon Wilcher and Brady Dunlap and sophomore Zuby Ejiofor all have indicated they like Pitino and the program and would stay. The situations with versatile sophomore RJ Luis Jr. and high-energy sophomore Glenn Taylor Jr. — both seemed to go from essential element to afterthought and back — is harder to pinpoint.
Sophomore Drissa Traore is well regarded in the program but could seek more playing time elsewhere. As for little-seen Iona transfers Cruz Davis and Sadiku Ibine Ayo, it’s hard to envision them as part of the next Storm team.
What will they need?
When Pitino said Sunday that the team would need “seven or eight new players,” there will be recruiting at virtually every position.
Even if Wilcher and Dingle return, St. John’s needs at least two more players who can handle the ball. They will need big men even though Ejiofor, one of the most improved players, is envisioned by Pitino as a power forward and touted high school big man Khaman Maker is expected. Hofstra’s Darlinstone Dubar — who averaged 17.8 points and 6.8 rebounds for the Pride — put his name in the portal on Monday and could be a fit.
As for wings, Dunlap and Greek commit Lefteris Liotopoulos should be in the fold, but St. John’s has to be better on the three-point arc than the 34% this season.
Should there be more games at Carnesecca Arena?
Pitino’s vision for St. John’s when he took over involved playing at as many big arenas as possible and to that end, the team played only five games there. It won all of them and he came to appreciate the on-campus facility — antiquated as it is — as having a real home-court advantage. He already has said he will bring Georgetown in for a Big East game that marks Lou Carnesecca’s 100th birthday.
The UBS Arena experiment was aspirational but produced poor crowds so three or four conference games should be at Carnesecca. The Garden remains a big priority and St. John’s is likely to play at least six conference games there. But the on-campus arena correlates with winning and so it could have the rest.
Can team building be accelerated?
One might think that with the word "college" in college basketball, the idea of development would be a priority. The Red Storm learned otherwise on Sunday when it wasn’t selected to the NCAA Tournament. The band of new players was still learning how to play with one another when it suffered some of the losses that cost it in the selection process. The committee appeared to not care that St. John’s developed into a team capable of beating the best going into postseason play.
With a bunch of new players expected on the roster, Pitino and his staff have to speed that process up so that the team is cohesive in time for non-conference play in 2024-25. This may be more essential than anything else.
How should they schedule?
Selection Sunday dictated this must be addressed. Pitino called the NET rankings “fraudulent” because St. John’s 32 didn’t get it in. And UConn coach Dan Hurley suggested that lesser conferences were going to get more teams in the field because they’d figured out how to “game the NET.”
St. John’s has high-major games built into its schedule with the Big East-Big 12 event and the Baha Mar Hoops Bahamas Championship (featuring Tennessee, Baylor and Virginia). But strategy is required with the rest.
The Mountain West Conference got six teams into the NCAA Tournament and committee member Bubba Cunningham explained “we didn't have that many data points outside of their conference — a lot of their wins against really high-ranking teams or high teams in the net all seemed to be in their league.”
Surely the Big East plans on discussing scheduling philosophy with its members to look at it.
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.
