In the wake of last season’s historic 31-5 campaign in which St. John’s won its first Big East Championship title since 2000, Rick Pitino’s roster was decimated this offseason. Veterans like RJ Luis Jr., Kadary Richmond, Aaron Scott and Deivon Smith all moved on and have spent time in the G League while several more transferred elsewhere.
Senior forward Zuby Ejiofor is literally the only returner who played more than eight minutes per game in 2024-25 and it led to another major portal rebuild in Queens.
The Red Storm were a notoriously bad three-point shooting team last season, 340th in the nation by KenPom’s metrics, and it bothered Pitino relentlessly. He overcompensated with signings like Ian Jackson (38.3% 3P), Oziyah Sellers (40.3% 3P), Joson Sanon (38.4% 3P) and Dylan Darling (33.7% 3P) who all garnered national attention this preseason.
Ultimately, St. John’s was selected 5th in the AP’s Preseason Poll Rankings. However, early losses to No. 16 Alabama, No. 4 Iowa State and No. 21 Auburn saw Pitino and Co. tumble as far as 22nd by the start of Week 7.
A critical part of those initial struggles has been the inconsistency from this St. John’s transfer class but that was always to be expected with 11 newcomers on the roster.
Jackson hasn’t quite worked his way into the starting point guard role like the staff had initially hoped and Sellers’ scoring has been extremely streaky. Meanwhile, the 2024-25 Big Sky Player of the Year in Darling, who Pitino believes can be one of his most valuable players, had failed to recapture that form from Idaho State.
Even Providence transfer Bryce Hopkins, St. John’s leading scorer on the season, has only scored double-digit points in six out of 10 games. He’s carried the Red Storm to some marquee wins as well though, highlighted by his 26 points, five rebounds and five assists over Baylor last month .
However, all those struggles and storylines seemingly came crashing down on Tuesday as the Red Storm opened up Big East play at home and beat DePaul, 79-66, in a wire-to-wire win.
On a night in which Hopkins, Ejiofor and even Dillon Mitchell started slow, it was many of the transfers mentioned above doing the heavy lifting for St. John’s.
Jackson scored seven of his ten points in the first half to lead the early charges before a few defensive musiques forced him to the bench for much of the second half. That’s where Sanon picked up the slack with a solid shooting performance and some incredible work on the glass, managing 15 points and nine rebounds which was a point of emphasis for Pitino.
“[Sanon’s] made great progress,” Pitino said. “Joson has really gotten a lot better defensively and when rebounding. He can score, he can shoot, he can put it on the floor, he can pass and probably has the most skills on the team. He can do the most things.”
It was Darling who stole the show though and played the spark plug role off the bench perfectly to lead St. John’s to victory. He subbed on five minutes into the first half of a then one-point game, drained a step back three moments later, drew an offensive foul down the other end, and quickly galvanized the Red Storm.
Darling finished with a team-leading and season-high 17 points, went 5-for-9 from the field, 3-for-5 from deep, and showed flashes of his brilliance from the Big Sky last season. It’s a small taste of what Darling brings when he’s playing with the confidence that’s required of the lead ball handler at a school like St. John’s in the city of New York.
St. John’s transfer Dylan Darling played the spark plug role perfectly in tonight’s win.
Came off the bench vs. DePaul with:
17 points
6 rebounds
2 assists
5-9 FG
3-5 3PFormer Idaho State standout is finally finding his footing under head coach Rick Pitino.@ThePortalReport pic.twitter.com/eTgLfd5fGT
— Riley Frain (@rileyfrain) December 17, 2025
“I was just really surprised that a veteran ballplayer like [Darling] would lose his confidence,” Pitino said. “[The last few days] I’ve just talked to him, told him how valuable he is and tried to pump him up. He brings so much value other than just shooting the ball. But he’s obviously going to have to improve and tonight he did very good.”
For the never satisfied Pitino, a win over a DePaul team picked to finish ninth in the Big East’s 2025-26 preseason poll isn’t enough. The competition ahead is tough, stronger, more physical and will present different challenges for a roster that’s largely inexperienced within one of the nation’s premier high-major conferences.
The Big East may have fallen from the fourth-ranked conference by KenPom in 2024-25 to fifth in 2025-26, but Pitino sees more growth than ever. And the metrics support him, with multiple programs inside the top-20 and nobody ranked below 122nd, which is a far cry from last season.
“[Against] Providence, Georgetown, Xavier, Villanova, it’s a new ballgame,” Pitino said. “It’s going to be tough for us to beat those teams. Even though we haven’t, as a league, beaten a lot of teams, these teams can play this year and there will be a lot with records a couple games over .500.”
Next up, an important test in preparation for a return to Big East play. St. John’s will make a trip to Atlanta, Ga. just before the Holiday to match up against the program Pitino once led to a National Championship in Kentucky.
Heading into “Catlanta” as Pitino said the Wildcat fans affectionately call it, presents an opportunity for this transfer class to continue delivering on those early expectations surrounding the nationally ranked Red Storm. But the head coach is confident his team will once again deliver.
“[Kentucky] will have about six or seven thousand fans there,” Pitino said. “So, it’ll be somewhat of a road game, but that’s okay because we’re playing some defense right now. I think it’ll be a very good basketball game.”
(Photos courtesy of @StJohnsBBall on Twitter/X)
