Please complete verification to access this content.

Click to Verify

Once left for dead, the St. John’s Red Storm have surged back to life under Rick Pitino. Not really an unfamiliar scenario after 50 years in the business. Now that’s earning the reigning national coach of the year some points. This one, in the form of a No.1 transfer portal class. He had the NIL backing, he had the experience, and he blended it all well. But how much of it is going to translate for the upcoming season? A little history has analysts in doubts. Or is one Pitino factor enough to erase that away?

After a successful season, though not the desired ending, the St. John’s HC got to work right away. He landed 5 transfers — Ian Jackson, Bryce Hopkins,, Joson Sanon, Oziyah Sellers, and Dillon Mitchell, which 247 Sports ranked as the No.1 class. ESPN hopped on, too, landing them as No.3 in the preseason rankings. But despite their squad being extremely strong on paper, these CBS analysts are in a standoff regarding how Rick Pitino and his team will fare in the coming season.

“We just don’t know; sometimes teams will have a great roster on paper for whatever reasons, valid or invalid. The alchemy will not be there. They just won’t gel the way you would want them to and that can be the downfall and, frankly, is the downfall of any number of teams in the given season,” analyst Matt Norlander expressed on CBS College Basketball.

Well, Norlander has a point. We saw the Kansas Jayhawks, with 6 transfers, crumble from preseason No.1 to the Round of 64 exit. In 2023-24, NC State had 7 transfers and started 9-11 in the regular season. Moreover, Evan Mikayakawa’s analysis shows just how important returning players have been for the teams — 3 of the 4 Final Four teams, Houston, Auburn, and Florida, had their veteran players logging in no less than 69% minutes on average.

Now for Pitino, he has lost 4 starters from his Round of 32 campaign. RJ Louis Jr., Kadary Richmond, Deivon Smith, and Aaron Scott won’t be coming back. This means the coach will be relying on new faces.

Ian Jackson from North Carolina, who was supposed to be one-and-done, had a subpar run. He hasn’t gotten all the nods for playing the point guard position with Pitino either. Mitchell, at 6’8″, hyper-athletic, is yet to reach full potential. Another recruit, Joson Sanon, was breathing fire from three early in his freshman year for Arizona State before tailing off at the end of the year. Sellers from Stanford adds some balance to this squad. But Hopkins is again injury-prone.

Getting these players to play some good basketball together will be a tough task. However, Gary Parrish is placing a little hope, both in a few teams’ last season success and of course, Rick Pitino.

“I am less concerned on April 24 2025 than I was on April 24th 2024. It just looks like 23-24 was a sample size that skewed in one direction and last season balanced it out,” he starts. Programs like Kentucky, Louisville, and Michigan made a strong case for that. Can even call Mark Pope the biggest winner, taking a squad with 9 new faces to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time in 6 years. Now when you add a coach like Pitino to the mix as the CBB continues to adjust to the new era, you get a situation defying the odds.

“You know who that doesn’t really apply to? Rick Pitino. When do you remember having a good roster and it not being a good team?” Parrish questions.

You wouldn’t have to look too far to know Pitino is arguably one of the best coaches in college hoops history. Boston. Louisville. Iona. You name it and Pitino has overturned the records. At St John’s, his win percentage of 0.750 was the best in the last 89 years of college history. When he led the program to its first conference title in 25 years, Rob Stone would say, “the coaching fraternity right now is like ‘we got a good one. This guy’s making us look good.'” Well, that would have said enough.

However, Pitino doesn’t happen to be the only one making waves. With programs gearing up, he has some serious competition in the Big East. Maybe because of the very factor that had the CBS analysts divided.

Marquette, a unicorn in basketball programs?

At a time when just about every Division I coach spends the offseason going for new players in the transfer portal, Marquette remains a traditionalist. No ‘here today and gone tomorrow’. Just continuity and success.

“We value relationships. We value growth. We value victory. Those are very basic values,” is what their coach, Shaka Smart, said about their conscious methodology. The Golden Eagles have not dipped into the Division I transfer portal since the start of the 2022-23 season, while all around them, it’s a gusher.

Even Norlander is impressed by their unique strategy, saying, “The pure nature of so many of these programs, so many, not all, that Marquette continues to push against that tide. And I am so interested in Marquette because of that.”

Smart, too, has seen immediate success during his tenure at Marquette, leading the program to NCAA tournament for 4 consecutive years now. One (2024) included a Sweet 16 appearance, too– a first since 2013. Now, after a first round exit in 2025, three seniors will take the door as they run out of eligibility. But the head coach isn’t peeping into the portal. “We believe in our way of doing things,” he says.

That’s two different approaches, one destination: the title. Which approach proves more suitable? The conference battle will soon tell.