St. John’s won’t sneak up on anyone this year.
Not after the Red Storm surged last spring to their first outright Big East regular-season and conference tournament championships in decades.
Not after they were a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
And definitely not as they open this season at No. 5 in the AP poll — the highest preseason ranking in school history.
The enthusiasm that surrounded last season’s earlier-than-expected program resurgence has been replaced this year by championship aspirations, and the players aren’t oblivious to it.
“We talk about it for sure,” Bryce Hopkins, a graduate transfer from Providence, said during Thursday afternoon’s media day at Carnesecca Arena. “That’s definitely the goal, to make it to that last weekend of March, or April, and playing for the Final Four and a championship.
“That’s definitely our goal, but Coach [Rick Pitino] has done a great job of telling us to stay focused every day. Just take it one day at a time, one game at a time, and not look forward into the future.”
Navigating those expectations will be paramount for a new-look St. John’s roster that brings back only one starter in senior forward/center Zuby Ejiofor but that imported a transfer class that ESPN and 247Sports touted as the best in the nation.
That group will face its first opponent on Saturday afternoon in an exhibition against unranked Towson at Carnesecca Arena.
“I told them it’s the goal of every big-time program to be a Final Four contender, and if we’re going to get there, this is what we have to do defensively and offensively,” Pitino said. “So, I really didn’t talk about us trying to be a Final Four program. I told them these are the things you have to do to be a Final Four contender.”
The players believe the talent is there.
Ejiofor was an All-Big East first team selection and the conference’s Most Improved Player last year.
Hopkins, a 6-7 forward, made the All-Big East first team in 2022-23 with Providence before injuries derailed him the last two seasons.
They headline a frontcourt that also added senior forward Dillon Mitchell, a defensive stopper who played two seasons at Texas and last year at Cincinnati.
Pitino addressed last year’s 3-point deficiencies, too, by adding Oziyah Sellers from Stanford, Joson Sanon from Arizona State, and Ian Jackson — a former five-star recruit out of Our Saviour Lutheran School in the Bronx — from UNC.
“The coaching staff did a really great job of who they recruited out of the portal,” Ejiofor said. “Guys that are really competitive and come from backgrounds that are ready to win now. Especially [with] it being our last year for most of us … it’s Final Four, it’s national championship, or bust, as Coach Pitino says pretty often.”
Of course, talent alone won’t be enough to win, especially in a Big East Conference in which No. 4 UConn is ranked even higher than St. John’s.
Pitino cites defensive communication as one area to improve.
The Johnnies enter the season without a true point guard, instead relying on Sellers — a wing by trade — to bring the ball up the court and defend opposing floor generals. Pitino believes St. John’s can thrive by playing position-less basketball, leaning on ball movement once they cross halfcourt.
And the starting lineup remains unsettled, with Sellers, Jackson, Sanon, Mitchell and Ejiofor expected to be the first five on Saturday.
“We want to think long-term and [about the] Final Four, but at the end of the day, I feel like the best approach is focusing on each and every day,” Sellers said. “Our game coming this Saturday, that’s our biggest focus.”
The Johnnies went 31-5 last year, but the season ended in upset fashion when 10th-seeded Arkansas ousted them in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
This year’s team has a chance to be even better, even if the wins end up being fewer. St. John’s faces a loaded non-conference schedule that includes games against No. 15 Alabama at Madison Square Garden, No. 16 Iowa State in Las Vegas and No. 9 Kentucky in Atlanta.
But St. John’s isn’t thinking about those games yet. The regular season opens with Quinnipiac on Nov. 3.
“We all have dreams of cutting down the nets at the end,” Pitino said. “Every school in the country right now, or at least 30 or 40 of them, believe they can win a national championship. I think the way you posture your thoughts on that is to make sure you just take care of the next day. We don’t look too far ahead.”