"Who knows how good a team will be": St. John's HC Rick Pitino expresses feelings on St. John's squad following Ian Jackson, Dillon Mitchell transfers

Like many other college basketball teams, coach Rick Pitino and the St. John's Red Storm are already gearing up for the 2025-26 basketball season. With the addition of players like Ian Jackson and Dillon Mitchell from the transfer portal, the team has now secured seven transfer players, alongside three incoming freshmen, who will be replacing the nine seniors expected to leave the team.

While it's too early to predict just how the pieces will come together, coach Pitino has expressed optimism in his team ahead of the new college basketball season. On Tuesday, Pitino put out a tweet on his official X page (formerly Twitter), sharing his early impressions of the group.

"Who knows how good a team will be in the summer, but what a special group of young men," Pitino Wrote. "Working hard to reach their potential. Total sponges wanting to soak things in to become better. Pure joy to coach!"

Based on how some of the incoming players performed last season, it's fair to say Rick Pitino has put together a pretty solid squad. 6-foot-4 guard Ian Jackson, who is coming in from North Carolina, averaged 11.9 points and 2.9 rebounds per game last season. Meanwhile, 6-foot-8 forward Dillon Mitchell put up 9.9 points and 6.9 rebounds per game with Cincinnati last season.

Other incoming transfers include Bryce Hopkins, who averaged 17.0 ppg at Providence, Oziyah Seller, who averaged 13.7 ppg at Stanford, Joson Sanon, who averaged 11.9 PPG at Arizona State, Dylan Darling, who averaged 19.8 PPG at Idaho State, and Handje Tamba, who averaged 10.5 PPG at Milligan University. In addition, Kevin Odih, Casper Pohto, and Imran Suljanovic are joining the freshman class.

"Our practices are very difficult.": St. John's HC Rick Pitino reveals secret sauce behind his coaching success

In an interview with American sports media personality Colin Cowherd, St. John's coach, Rick Pitino, opened up about the principles behind his coaching approach and success. In the interview, which was shared on The Herd's YouTube channel, Pitino was asked what's helped him succeed where others have struggled, particularly at programs like St. John's that have faced decades of challenges.

"Well, we have player development sessions every morning, Monday through Friday, where we go three to four different sessions with four players," Rick Pitino said. "And we try to take players like Donovan Mitchell and Terry Rozier, who maybe is not ranked top 20–25 in high school. They've got a little bit of a weakness. Donovan Mitchell had a weakness with the arc on his jump shot."

Pitino also explained that a big part of his coaching success comes down to the intensity of his practices.

"Our practices are very difficult," Pitino said. "But I will say this: they're not long. We don't go more than two hours, but we go hard for two hours. We're up and down for two hours. If I make a correction, it's going to be within 12 seconds, and then we're moving on."

Last season, Rick Pitino and the St. John's Red Storm won the Big East title for the first time since 1985. They also made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament.