\u00a0Things morphed in other ways over the seven weeks. One of the most notable is that coach Rick Pitino has eschewed the concept of designating someone as the team\u2019s point guard to instead go with what he\u2019s calling a \u201cpoint-less\u201d system. Another is the ascent of freshman Kelvin Odih, whom Pitino called \u201cone of the best players in the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the final workout, the Red Storm played an intrasquad scrimmage on Tuesday at Carnesecca Arena and allowed media and a few so-called program “shareholders” to watch. Pitino even introduced each player \u2014\u00a010 of the 15 are new \u2014\u00a0and said of the group, \u201cThis is the finest collection of athletes I\u2019ve had in 51 years \u2014\u00a0no egos.\u201d<\/p>\n
The “Blue”\u00a0team starters were what appears to be the Red Storm\u2019s starting frontcourt of Zuby Ejiofor,<\/a> Mitchell and Bryce Hopkins<\/a> plus guards Oziyah Sellers<\/a> and Odih. The “White”\u00a0team started Ian Jackson<\/a> and Joson Sanon<\/a> \u2014\u00a0both likely to go pro after the 2025-26\u00a0season \u2014\u00a0plus Dylan Darling, Sadiku Ibine-Ayo and Ruben Prey.<\/p>\n White scored the last eight points and prevailed 78-76 when Jackson took a steal for a layup with five seconds to play.<\/p>\n Since his decision to transfer from North Carolina, Jackson has been central in the national attention paid to the Storm. He is viewed as a potential NBA lottery pick and, after his transfer, Pitino said the Bronx product would be converted from a shooting guard with the Tar Heels to St. John\u2019s point guard.<\/p>\n Jackson showed Tuesday he\u2019s an elite scorer who can make shots on all three levels, though he did commit some turnovers. However, Pitino said his ballhandling isn\u2019t behind the move away from\u00a0traditional point guards like Daniss Jenkins, Kadary Richmond and Deivon Smith.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has nothing to do with Ian \u2014\u00a0we just realized that we have so many good athletes that we’re going to run a \u2018point-less\u2019 system,\u201d said Pitino, who also explained that Mitchell and Hopkins were the best distributors in summer workouts. \u201cWe didn\u2019t expect this . . . Everybody handles the ball, everybody passes the ball . . . They’re all interchangeable parts. So, we’re running pure motion not because of a lack of anything. We’re running pure motion because everybody’s really physically skilled.\u201d<\/p>\n Darling, the 2025 Big Sky Player of the Year at Idaho State, is more a prototype point guard and none of the players did more ballhandling Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cHe’s as tough as anybody in the country,\u201d Pitino said. \u201c[For]\u00a0his size, he\u2019s not afraid of anything. Fans are going to love Dylan Darling, [just]\u00a0love him.\u201d<\/p>\n Pitino hasn\u2019t gone with freshmen much at St. John\u2019s \u2014\u00a0not even blue-chipper Simeon Wilcher in 2023-24 \u2014\u00a0but he said the 6-4 Odih has outhustled even Ejiofor, the Storm\u2019s top effort player, and might get significant minutes on this team.<\/p>\n \u201cI played Donovan Mitchell and Terry Rozier,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cIt depends on what type of freshmen they are . . . but Kelvin is going to play a lot because he’s one of the best players on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe’s coming in with a great mindset and just going hard,\u201d Ejiofor said. \u201cEvery single day, he’s given 100% effort and he reminds me of myself, honestly, even, probably \u2014\u00a0like coach said \u2014\u00a0gives more energy than me. I’m getting old, fellas.\u201d<\/p>\n Odih, who is from Providence, Rhode Island, was among the scrimmage\u2019s leading scorers before exiting with a left ankle injury. He left in a boot and on crutches.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has been the best motor of the summer \u2014\u00a0totally unexpected . . . blows everybody away,\u201d Pitino said. \u201cHe’s relentless, unguardable, improved his jump shot. That’s so unusual for a freshman \u2014\u00a0I haven’t seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n When asked about his \u201cfinest collection of athletes\u201d remark, Pitino suggested he\u2019s actually said \u201ccollection of people\u201d and gave this assessment: \u201cLook, we’re a very deep team . . . Now, if they can just defensively be as good as last year, if they can rise to the occasion defensively like last year’s team, they’ll be a hell of a team.\u201d<\/p>\n Notes & quotes:\u00a0Pitino said St. John\u2019s will play a dozen dates at the Garden \u2014\u00a0an\u00a0exhibition against Michigan, non-conference games with Alabama, Ole Miss and Iona,\u00a0and eight Big East games \u2014\u00a0but he hopes a ninth conference game can be added . . . \u00a0Austrian freshman Imran Suljanovic suffered a knee injury during summer workouts and Pitino said he can resume basketball activities in three weeks.<\/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":"In many ways, St. John\u2019s came out of its seven weeks of summer workouts exactly as it went…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,1976,4044,398,400,401,99,10151],"class_list":["post-61256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college","tag-college-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-sports","tag-st-johns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n