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A tumultuous season for St John's comes to an end. Let's review them!

OUT:
*Montez Mathis
*Esahia Nywie
*Andre Curbelo (portal to Southern Miss)
*Rafael Pinzón (portal to Bryant)
*Omar Stanley (portal to Boise State)
*Kolby King (portal to Tulane)
*AJ Storr (portal to Wisconsin)
*Dylan Addae-Wusu (portal to Seton Hall)
*Posh Alexander (portal to Butler)
*David Jones (portal to Memphis)

STAY:
*Joel Soriano

IN:
*Brady Dunlap
*Simeon Wilcher
*Daniss Jenkins (Transfer from Iona)
*Cruz Davis (Transfer from Iona)
*Sadiku Ibine Ayo (Transfer from Iona)
*Sean Conway (Transfer from VMI)
*Nahiem Alleyne (Transfer from UConn)
*Glenn Taylor (Transfer from Oregon State)
*RJ Luis (Transfer from UMass)
*Jordan Dingle (Transfer from Penn)
*Zuby Ejiofor (Transfer from Kansas)
*Chris Ledlum (Harvard/Tennessee)

My 0.02:
*Yeesh. Another bad year for the Red Storm. That is likely the end of the Mike Anderson's time in Queens. They finish 18-15 overall 7-13 in the league. The thing about the Johnnies is that they didn't lack talent. Soriano, Curbelo, Alexander, DAW, Jones and Storr are all very talented players. But Anderson couldn't seem to mesh them together and there of course was drama with Curbelo and Pinzon. Never a good look to suspend 2 players because it means you've lost control of your team. Assuming Anderson is let go, expect plenty of updates to what you see above. Fortunately for the Johnnies, there's a guy just up the road who knows a thing or 2 about winning basketball games. He's also a native New Yorker. It's Pitino or bust. Pardon my language but while he might be a bit of an asshole, the dude is a winner. IMO, he's the guy to make St John's a player again. What say you, Red Storm faithful?
UPDATE: Anderson has officially been handed his pink slip per Jeff Goodman and he also reports there's a lot of interest brewing between the school and Pitino!
UPDATE II: Officially official! Ricky P is heading to St John's!
UPDATE III: Joel Soriano is STAYING as Pitino has already named him the captain of the team! Wow! That's huge

POST-DEADLINE UPDATE:
I believe Ricky P has done a masterful job at reshaping this roster. He also kept the best player on the team from last year. Pitino brought in some of his players from Iona. I think Jenkins can be a good player but he'll need to prove it at the Big East level. Alleyne is a great add because he's got a freaking RING, veteran leadership and can give SJU a spark off the bench like he did at UConn. Players like Luis, Conway and Dingle are also excellent adds but they too will need to prove themselves in our league. Taylor was a good player at Oregon State and Ejiofor played at Kansas. Ok, the latter didn't get a lot of playing time at KU but if you suited up for Bill Self at some point, you gotta be pretty good. Some will say the Red Storm are already an NCAA Tournament team. I hope they are! I'd love to see the Johnnies play most of their games at a packed MSG instead of at that on-campus arena of theirs. Program has been in desperate need of a jolt of excitement for a long time and they finally got it with Ricky P in charge!

I think Pitino is coming and he right's the ship. But it is St. John's, so you can never assume anything.

What a wild time to be a SJ fan. Just a week or two ago, Pitino was said to be "pie in the sky" with "no chance". Suddenly within the last few days, lots of smoke & rumors between us and Pitino have been picking up. There are even rumors SJ has an offer in place already. What changed? The word is that Father Shanley (President) was allowed to lead the process. The last search was led by Cragg & the board at SJ & we saw how that turned out. A national embarrassment.

Getting Pitino here would instantly be our best coach by far...ever in our 100+ yr history. It would be a complete game-changer. Recruiting would go through the roof, donations through the roof, season tix through the roof, attendance through the roof. The NYC market hype machine with the Big East HQ...with NY's team led by local HOF coach. It would lead to major upgrades in facilities, more eyeballs on Big East, much better TV contract $, and it may finally awaken one of the sleeping giants. We saw the national hype we got under Lavin with just a TASTE of success. Multiply that by 100 with Pitino. We would also play many more games at MSG and we'd likely get some major marquee OOC games hopefully against big brands like Texas, Bama, etc. To be honest, I'm almost shaking that we have a serious chance of this happening after thinking there was zero shot weeks ago.

With UConn probably on their way out at some point within the next decade or so & Nova clearly taking a few steps back after Wright (hopefully Neptune figures it out in next few yrs), what better time for St. John's and hopefully Georgetown to finally get back to their 80's vibes? A strong St. John's and Georgetown is MASSIVE for this conference.

Please please happen!

Goodman reporting that Anderson has been let go.

and more: There is significant interest on both sides with the St. John’s job and Iona coach Rick Pitino, source told @Stadium
.

MullinMayhem wrote:What a wild time to be a SJ fan. Just a week or two ago, Pitino was said to be "pie in the sky" with "no chance". Suddenly within the last few days, lots of smoke & rumors between us and Pitino have been picking up. There are even rumors SJ has an offer in place already. What changed? The word is that Father Shanley (President) was allowed to lead the process. The last search was led by Cragg & the board at SJ & we saw how that turned out. A national embarrassment.

Getting Pitino here would instantly be our best coach by far...ever in our 100+ yr history. It would be a complete game-changer. Recruiting would go through the roof, donations through the roof, season tix through the roof, attendance through the roof. The NYC market hype machine with the Big East HQ...with NY's team led by local HOF coach. It would lead to major upgrades in facilities, more eyeballs on Big East, much better TV contract $, and it may finally awaken one of the sleeping giants. We saw the national hype we got under Lavin with just a TASTE of success. Multiply that by 100 with Pitino. We would also play many more games at MSG and we'd likely get some major marquee OOC games hopefully against big brands like Texas, Bama, etc. To be honest, I'm almost shaking that we have a serious chance of this happening after thinking there was zero shot weeks ago.

With UConn probably on their way out at some point within the next decade or so & Nova clearly taking a few steps back after Wright (hopefully Neptune figures it out in next few yrs), what better time for St. John's and hopefully Georgetown to finally get back to their 80's vibes? A strong St. John's and Georgetown is MASSIVE for this conference.

Please please happen!

This x 1000. An exciting time to be a Johnnies fan. If this happens it will be unreal.

Might be about 14 minutes until we start getting answers on St John's.

What a great day for the St John's program!! Congrats on getting your guy Johnnies!

from Zags-
Rick Pitino plans to take his entire @IonaGaelsMBB staff with him to @StJohnsBBall, per source

stever20 wrote:Might be about 14 minutes until we start getting answers on St John's.

It only took “about 15 seconds” and it was all done under the table

OmahaGuy wrote:What a great day for the St John's program!! Congrats on getting your guy Johnnies!

Thanks for the congrats. It will be nice to not be living vicariously through all you other guys anymore. Let's go Johnnies!!