St. John's basketball trusts depth, unlikely to add high school recruits this season

Rick Pitino has a plan for the future of the St. John's basketball program and it doesn't include adding high school talent anytime soon.

The Red Storm do not have a commitment from a prospect in the Class of 2025 and the Hall of Famer explained on Tuesday at the team's media day that will probably not change.

"We're not going to, probably, take a high school basketball player unless he's an impact player that plays extremely hard," he said.

A major reasoning for that is its 4-player freshmen class that Pitino remains very excited about.

"We have Jaiden Glover, right now, who we are extremely high on. Ruben Prey, another freshman who we are very high on. [Lefteris Liotopoulos], who we’re high on. We have enough young players right now where we don’t have to take a freshman.”

247Sports ranked the 2024 St. John's recruiting class at No. 43 in the country, although that does not include Prey. Glover, the highest ranked prospect of the Red Storm recruits, finished at No. 55 in the 247Sports Composite rankings.

The Johnnies also have 7-foot center Khaman Maker as a member of its freshmen class. Maker is not expected to receive many minutes this season and could be a candidate to redshirt.

St. John's could also see the return of Simeon Wilcher, Brady Dunlap, and Zuby Ejiofor for the 2025-26 season, which would make the need and available playing time for freshmen tough to find.

Pitino did cultivate the No. 4 transfer recruiting class, according to 247Sports, this offseason which will be another method that the Red Storm use to replenish its roster in May.

In the meantime, Rick Pitino is focused on returning to the NCAA Tournament with St. John's for what would be the team's first berth in the postseason since 2019.