2024/2025 Roster

bucketshardy said:
you think Maker is starting this year?!?
Click to expand...
I know about those tapes where no one ever misses a shot...and blocks everything...but Maker looks like the real deal. I'm saying that because he moves like a guard...he was a soccer player...and he's a legit 7'2" now. I don't know about starting. I bet even Pitino doesn't know yet.
 
newsman13 said:
I know about those tapes where no one ever misses a shot...and blocks everything...but Maker looks like the real deal. I'm saying that because he moves like a guard...he was a soccer player...and he's a legit 7'2" now. I don't know about starting. I bet even Pitino doesn't know yet.
Click to expand...
I love this kid.
 


The games don’t start until the first week of November. What St. John’s does right now is essential if it's going to win them.

In the days after Selection Sunday — when the Red Storm were stunned to learn their red-hot finish hadn’t been enough to carry them into the NCAA Tournament’s field of 68 — many of the players who are returning for the coming season realized some things would need to be different for St. John’s to be successful in 2024-25. And as coach Rick Pitino said before he’d even coached the Storm in a game, “you must make the NCAA Tournament to be successful — that’s the gauge.”

Pitino finished assembling St. John’s 2024-25 roster one week ago with the signing of forward Ruben Prey from Portugal. It concluded a period where he added to the incoming recruiting class with several transfers including Big East all-conference pick Kadary Richmond from Seton Hall and Pac-12 assist leader Deivon Smith from Utah.


That stretch was important. But the one they’re in right now — with most of the team assembled on campus and summer workouts underway — might be even bigger.

“Everybody was in with fresh faces [last season], experiencing something new and not knowing how to play under Coach Pitino and not knowing his coaching [style],” rising sophomore guard Simeon Wilcher told Newsday at a team appearance in Queens on the night of the national championship game. “The way I practiced] when [the team] first started last summer was very different from how I practiced at the end. It was like that for almost all of us. There’s a way you play for [Pitino] and you have to adjust.

“We can speed that process up with this group coming back,” he added. “The new players will have an [example] for how you’re expected to practice, to play, to live under coach Pitino.”

The last Red Storm team had only two returning players, neither who’d played for Pitino. This one has four returning rotation regulars — Wilcher, sophomore forward Brady Dunlap, junior forward/center Zuby Ejiofor and junior swingman RJ Luis Jr. — who understand the commitment the Hall of Fame coach expects.

“I heard stories and I researched a lot about Coach Pitino myself, but you don’t really know how crazy-obsessed he is about basketball and all the work he’ll put [players] through to make you [good],” Dunlap said. “I don’t think many of us understood the hours and hours of film and the long practices and extra workouts he [demands]. We were all taken aback about how hard it was and then we finally started to figure out how much [is required].

“Only then did we start to really figure out the press and his offense,” he added.

St. John’s took some inexcusable non-conference losses early, to a Michigan team that finished dead last in the Big Ten and to a Boston College team that finished 11th of 15 in the ACC. With Luis returning from shin splints, the Storm played just well enough to lose by four on the road to eventual national champion Connecticut before Christmas.


“We will be a better team much earlier because guys coming back now understand the importance of those games early in the season,” Dunlap said. “Maybe a few guys that understood, like [Nahiem Alleyne] because he’d been at UConn . . . I don’t think a lot of us really understood the importance of each [non-conference] game leading up to the [Big East] and it all bit us in the back at the end. We didn’t realize how important Boston College was and Michigan was and those just killed us.

“Me and Sim and Zuby and RJ now get the importance of those early games — not just winning them, but winning them by a lot.”

The team started to pick up the beat with four wins after that but then came the string of heartbreakers: a one-point loss at Creighton, a one-point loss to Marquette, fading late at Xavier and a three-point defeat at Providence.

In the final weeks the Storm was had been envisioned at the start. It reeled off five straight victories to close the regular season and finish fifth in the conference and then avenged a pair of regular-season losses to Seton Hall by defeating the Pirates in a Big East quarterfinal to reach its first semifinal since 2000, where it battled to a five-point loss to UConn.

“When we finally figured out Coach Pitino, that’s when we got really good,” Dunlap said. “Once we did that, we were able to execute his offense and his press. There was an evolution — doing things his way and doing them together — and that’s why we got good.”


St. John’s just got there too slowly in 2023-24.

“We closed out the season really strong, but starting with those tough [non-conference] losses impacted the decision of the committee [to] leave us out,” Ejiofor said.

“Everything has to start coming together earlier next season and we’re building that culture to do that,” he added. “We have a core of guys coming back. We know Coach Pitino now and the way we have to play to win. . . . We can show the newer guys.”

In the big picture, there was a lot that came out of Selection Sunday when only three Big East teams made the field. Members of the selection committee suggested success at the start of the season is as important as success at the end. Big East coaches said the committee relied too much on flawed metrics. Big East officials said that lesser conferences figured out how to manipulate the numbers and vowed to address it.

But on the St. John’s campus — where the Storm players found out they’d not only been left out but also hadn’t been considered among the last four cut — there was massive disappointment. And that disappointment soon turned into a resolve about this season.


“It was heartbreaking seeing the guys that would be [leaving] — it made a lasting impression . . . and made me feel like I could have done more,” Dunlap said. “I don’t ever want to have that feeling again.”

“It motivates me to know for-sure we’re going to get our name called next time, not leave it up to the committee,” Wilcher said. “None of us want to go through that — feel that messed up — again and that’s what we’re going to be talking about from day one of summer workouts.”

Pitino’s biggest restoration projects — Providence, Kentucky and Louisville — had moderate success in the first year then took off in the second.

“I’m very optimistic [because] if you looked at all the stats on coach Pitino . . . the second year he gets it going,” Dunlap said. “We’ll one year stronger, have another year of Pitino development and have a bunch of players that know the Pitino way.”
 
stormthepaint.com

Rick Pitino updates St. John's basketball roster after first week of summer workouts

An early update on the St. John's basketball team was provided by Rick Pitino on social media.
stormthepaint.com stormthepaint.com

Quotes from RP's Twitter:

"First week of summer workouts brings a lot of optimism. Deivon Smith has Peyton Siva speed (my Pey Pey-big compliment), Aaron Scott is a terrific two way player, lock down wing. Love my two 7 footers! Vince Iguchukwu has great upside."

"Vince & Khaman have great upside. Long and agile. Both need to work on footwork and improve balance. Kadary is rehabbing an injury from the season. Sim has to give us 3 pt shooting. He has great arc and i expect big things out of him. RJ is still working on his shins in Miami..."

"Zuby & Sadiku have improved immensely since last year. Zuby will play both the 4 & 5. Brady has gained 15 pounds and just needs to get into basketball shape. His shooting will be a big asset."
 
Rick said Brady and Sim grew an inch. Wonder if they just used the same heights listed last year or if they really didn’t grow
 
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