Big Basketball: Why St. Johns poses biggest threat to Connecticut for 2024-25 season

No matter how you draw it up, the return of Dan Hurley is massive for the future of the Connecticut Huskies basketball program. Although the path to three-peat will be the hardest path yet, and not just because it hasn't been done since the 1967-73 UCLA Bruins. More so, because UConn lost four out of their five starters from last season and aren't entering this year with a top-five recruiting class, according to 247Sports. 

However, UConn did land five-star recruit Liam McNeeley from Montverde Acamdemy, retained Alex Karaban, and landed Saint Mary's transfer Aidan Mahaney and former Michigan Wolverine Tarris Reed Jr., who will hope to fill the void of Donovan Clingan. 

There's no question UConn has a team flooded with talent, but their roster is as vulnerable as it has been since 2020-21 season, and when you win back-to-back national championships, every single team in the country sees the blatant target on your back and is gunning for it. One team to keep an eye on in the Big East that could be the one to knock the crown off the defending champs is the St. Johns Red Storm, who have formed one of the best transfer portal classes in the entire country. 

This is really the first year that Rick Pitino has been able to dissect and form the roster that he envisions. Not that he has coached the prime of his years in the "transfer portal era," but he has seemed to be adjusting to it just fine. 

The most prominent addition the Red Storm have landed this off-season is Seton Hall transfer Kadary Richmond, who is a good-sized combo guard with the ability to play both sides of the ball effectively and efficiently. Richmond averaged 15.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 5.1 assists on 44.1% shooting from the field. 

Richmond will bring a key sense of experience, leadership, and an immense value of talent to a team that is filled with shooters, rim protectors, and floor spacers. The Red Storm also managed to land Deivon Smith from Utah, who shot 40.8% from three last season, and Aaron Scott, who was the catalyst for a very good North Texas team. Scott brings a two-way skillset to the table for St. Johns, averaging 11.0 points, 1.3 blocks, and 1.1 steals. Fitting seamslessy into his small forward role. 

Lastly, one of the more underrated additions was athletic 7-foot-1 center Vincent Iwuchukwu, who is coming to New York after spending his last two seasons in Southern California with the USC Trojans. The Johnnies needed an athletic rim protector who could clean up the glass and strengthen the backend of their defense, which Pitino hopes to improve from a year ago. 

Nonthless, this is a public warning to really keep an eye on the this team, who have a mix of talented freshman coming in and experienced transfer portal assets that have drastically improved the team on paper entering the 2024–25 season. 

UConn isn't a slouch and won't be an easy out by any means, but when the opportunity comes knocking to batter the crown off the champions, you seize it, and that is exactly what St. Johns hopes to do in the Big East this year.