The St. John’s basketball program continues it roll, landing its third player out of the transfer portal in the last seven days and cementing itself as one of the best teams on paper entering the 2025-26 season.
Dillon Mitchell, a Cincinnati transfer who started his career at Texas, committed to the Red Storm on Wednesday morning.
The former McDonald’s All-American and 5-star recruit is a freak athlete who can defend at a very high level while posting 9.9 points and 6.9 rebounds last season with the Bearcats. He shot 61.4-percent from the field and has started all but one of his 107 career games.
Mitchell heavily considered St. John’s last season when he entered the portal but now lands in Queens hours after the departure of Red Storm backup center Vince Iwuchukwu, who entered the portal on Tuesday night.
It seems likely that the 6-foot-8 forward could come off the bench with the Johnnies, adding to the depth that Rick Pitino has already built into his roster, but would certainly be a new role for him.
While St. John’s is hoping that it can maintain the defensive metrics it put together this season with the addition to Mitchell, the pairing of him with Zuby Ejiofor and Providence transfer Bryce Hopkins should create one of the best rebounding teams in the nation.
Mitchell pulled down 7.5 boards per game in his final season with the Longhorns.
Dillon Mitchell joins Arizona State’s Joson Sanon, Providence’s Bryce Hopkins, Stanford’s Oziyah Sellers, and North Carolina’s Ian Jackson in the St. John’s transfer haul, which is now ranked as the best transfer class in the country by most recruiting outlets.
The Red Storm are still scouring what is available in the point guard market to add to its roster despite Rick Pitino’s assertion that Jackson can play the point.