{"id":2759,"date":"2025-07-18T09:30:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T09:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/2759\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T09:30:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T09:30:03","slug":"st-johns-hopkins-fully-healthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/2759\/","title":{"rendered":"St. John’s Hopkins fully healthy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wait is almost over for St. John\u2019s Bryce Hopkins<\/a>. When the Red Storm opens its season in November, the 6-7 transfer from Providence will be turning the page on what will have been a 22-month period over two seasons where he was limited by injury to just three college games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s going to be fun,\u201d Hopkins said Wednesday at the team\u2019s appearance in Manhattan at the adidas Brand Center Store<\/a>. \u201cI’m looking forward to it – just being out there, playing in Madison Square Garden and playing with a new group of guys. It’s going to be amazing. I can’t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

His \u2018new group of guys\u2019 is a Red Storm team seen with Final Four potential after coach Rick Pitino brought back star Zuby Ejiofor from a squad\u00a0that won the Big East regular season and tournament championships<\/a> and added the nation\u2019s top-rated group of transfers.<\/p>\n

Ejiofor may be St. John\u2019s acknowledged returning star, but he’s\u00a0not the only player on the Red Storm roster who has been voted to an All-Big East first team. Hopkins was one as a sophomore with the Friars in 2022-23 after transferring from Kentucky. That season he averaged 15.8 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists.<\/p>\n

He looked to be on his way to an even better performance as a junior when his college career got badly derailed by injury. A torn ACL ended his season after 14 games. He tried to come back last year, but aggravated the injury and played just three games. With designs to play in the NBA, Hopkins made the jump to join Pitino and the Storm in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m pretty much just looking at it as [joining]\u00a0coach Pitino, playing for a . . . . legend in the college era, and I’m just looking for him to help me get to that next level,\u201d Hopkins said. \u201cThat’s pretty much how I was looking at it. . . . I know I have a lot of stuff to learn from him and he can give me some stuff to get to that next level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopkins also considered transferring to Georgetown to play for Ed Cooley, his first coach at Providence and the one who coaxed his move from Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Cooley attended the NBA Draft in Brooklyn last month with first-round pick Thomas Sorber and was asked about Hopkins donning a Red Storm uniform and replied, \u201cThat one hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pitino\u2019s delight was communicated in a social media post where he wrote, \u201cHe epitomizes everything I love in a basketball player: Passionate, Hungry, and Driven. Can\u2019t wait to work with him! Will become a great one for St John\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Physically, Hopkins is finally right.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m 100%,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel great going through the workouts, great going through practice. I feel really good right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

His game, he explained, will look more disciplined and mature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m more patient on the court now,\u201d he said. \u201cI’m not trying to press or force anything. I let the game come to me and I just try to make the right play every possession.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he said he has greater appreciation for this opportunity after missing all that time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s one of the things I was looking at when I was out,\u201d Hopkins said, \u201cjust not taking it for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

He should not be taken for granted by Storm opponents in any way. Ejiofor said Hopkins\u2019 play at summer workouts and practices has met or exceeded\u00a0expectations .<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can get downhill and is creating for others,\u201d Ejiofor said.<\/p>\n

\u201c[He\u2019s]\u00a0a really big piece to what we’re trying to build here at St John’s,\u201d Ejiofor added. \u201cObviously we know what he did his sophomore year, before the injuries, and the [feats]\u00a0that he was able to accomplish. So we expect . . . less, just for him to come in and do exactly what he does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where most transfers during Pitino\u2019s first two seasons at St. John\u2019s had to adjust to the rigors of\u00a0his practices and his demand for attention to detail, Hopkins seems unfazed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy freshman year I played for coach [John]\u00a0Calipari [at Kentucky], so I’m kind of used to it,\u201d he said. \u201c[I\u2019m]\u00a0older too, I . . . . know what coach wants from us and I know the level that he’s pushing us and where his vision is for us and winning the national championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Roger<\/p>\n

\n\tRoger 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The wait is almost over for St. John\u2019s Bryce Hopkins. When the Red Storm opens its season in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[562],"tags":[64,63,726,707,724,725,704,721,723,722,85,4123],"class_list":["post-2759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaab","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-college","tag-college-basketball","tag-collegebasketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports","tag-st-johns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}