St. John’s Basketball: Analyzing targets Mackenzie Mgbako, RJ Luis and Glenn Taylor
![Mar 21, 2023; New York, NY, USA; Rick Pitino is introduced as new St. John’s head coach at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports Mar 21, 2023; New York, NY, USA; Rick Pitino is introduced as new St. John’s head coach at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape/cover/sport/23436e0fc270610bea224e7a974e72332ec506127a292c61d8cee7c3169608c2.jpg)
For a program that’s been in the background for a while, St. John’s Basketball has finally gotten into the national spotlight this offseason. They parted ways with head coach Mike Anderson and made arguably the biggest splash in the coaching carousel, hiring Iona HC and Hall of Famer, Rick Pitino.
As expected, there’s been plenty of fanfare with the move. Then came the resulting roster moves. It was expected that a number of players on the current roster would leave but turns out, just about everyone that was in the rotation ended up leaving. The lone exception was Joel Soriano, who led the team with 15.2 ppg and 13.9 rpg this past season.
Having Soriano is a great focal point of the roster but so far, there haven’t been a ton of newcomers that have followed. To this point, St. John’s has added five newcomers, four of them coming via the backcourt. One includes Daniss Jenkins, who was a star back at Iona with Pitino. With this being his third D-I basketball team, he’ll have to be a graduate transfer in order to be guaranteed to be eligible for next season.
Even assuming that’s the case, the Red Storm still is going to need some more pieces in order to be competitive in both the Big East and nationally. And while the transfer portal is losing talent by the day, there are some starting caliber players available, along with a few future freshmen as well.
Here’s a look at who St. John’s Basketball has added, along with who they’re currently in the mix with.