{"id":620674,"date":"2026-04-21T04:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/620674\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T04:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T04:56:15","slug":"lefteris-liotopoulos-withdraws-from-transfer-portal-and-returns-to-st-johns-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/620674\/","title":{"rendered":"Lefteris Liotopoulos withdraws from transfer portal and returns to St. John&#8217;s basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"4u\">The St. John\u2019s basketball team will be keeping one of its own as sophomore guard <a href=\"https:\/\/redstormsports.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/lefteris-liotopoulos\/6026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Lefteris Liotopoulos<\/a> will be withdrawing his name from the transfer portal and returning to the Red Storm. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"4x\">He made the announcement on social media Monday night. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"50\">\u201cIn the summer of 2024, I made a huge decision to leave my home and my family to become a Johnnie and grow as a player, a student, and a person. These past two seasons, with the constant support of my coaches, the everyday competition with my teammates, and the love of the St. John\u2019s fans, made SJU feel like my second home.\u201d <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"53\">\u201cAfter thinking through my options, I realized that there [Madison Square Garden] is the place where I want to thrive, and I trust Coach Pitino and the entire coaching staff to bring the best out of me,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"56\">Liotopolous saw his role marginally increase this season, averaging 7.7 minutes per contest as compared to 4.8 as a freshman. He averaged 2.9 points per game on 32.1-percent shooting from 3-point range (17-of-53) and should serve as key reserve off the bench for the Red Storm this season. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"59\">He posted back-to-back games of double-digit points for the first time in his career as St. John\u2019s started a 13-game winning streak, scoring ten points in a road win over Butler and 17 points in a victory over Creighton in which he shot a combined 7-for-14 from 3-point range. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5c\">Lefteris Liotopolous joins a likely returning cast to St. John\u2019s of Ruben Prey, Ian Jackson, and Casper Pohto although Tuesday is the final day players can enter the transfer portal. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5f\">Dylan Darling, Joson Sanon, Kelvin Odih, Imran Suljanovic, and Sadiku Ibine Ayo have already entered the portal from the Johnnies. Darling has committed to Grand Canyon, Suljanovic to New Mexico, and Ibine Ayo is returning to Iona.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow stormthepaint.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=stormthepaint.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St. John\u2019s basketball team will be keeping one of its own as sophomore guard Lefteris Liotopoulos will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-620674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620674","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=620674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}