St. John’s Basketball: Impact of RJ Luis injury for Red Storm this season
St. John’s Basketball was looking forward to RJ Luis being part of the rotation this season. But could an injury prevent that?
No program was busier this offseason than St. John’s Basketball, After hiring head coach Rick Pitino to restore the program’s prestige, the team rebuilt almost its entire roster, landing nine players from the transfer portal. One of them was RJ Luis, a 6’7 guard/wing who was an All-Atlantic 10 freshman performer at UMass.
As a freshman, Luis averaged 11.5 ppg and 4.6 rpg on 46% shooting from the field and 35% from deep on limited attempts. He showed flashes of stardom in his first year, including a season-high 31 points against Duquesne, with 17 coming from the free throw line. He, along with Kansas transfer Zuby Ejiofor, was supposed to be long-term pieces for the program that still could be part of the rotation this upcoming season.
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That was, until Ruis reportedly suffered a broken hand injury that’s set to sideline him through the start of the 2023-24 season. With five weeks before the November 6th season opener, the ideal scenario is that Luis only misses a few games, although the non-con schedule features opponents such as Michigan and the Charleston Classic MTE.
Besides the potential that he misses all eight weeks and doesn’t get back on the court until December, Luis now will be behind the eight-ball when it comes to battling for minutes. Assuming that the starting backcourt is set with Daniss Jenkins and Jordan Dingle and the frontcourt is set with Chris Ledlum and Joel Soriano, there’s just the traditional small forward position to vie for.
And there are several other options looking for minutes there. Naheim Alleyne is a grad transfer from UConn, while Glenn Taylor is a combo forward transfer from Oregon State. Plus, Simeon Wilcher could get a chance to impress as a top-40 incoming freshman. If the groups looks impressive early on, Luis could struggle to get minutes once he gets cleared to play.
With respect to Luis, maybe that’s a good thing for the Big East program. They can have a clear rotation to start out with and have the veterans get minutes and avoid chemistry issues. Luis has three years of eligibility anyways so would it be the worst thing if he was the odd-man out? But the reality is that most of these guys are unproven at the Big East level and lacks the raw athleticism that Luis has.
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It’s far from a fatal blow to St. John’s Basketball but for a program looking to find the right lineups to succeed this season, it’s definitely a small step-back for now.