A dominant performance from the alleged St. John’s basketball starting five only lasted a week before Rick Pitino decided to tinker with things prior to the team’s first exhibition game on Saturday (2:00 p.m. ET, ESPN+) against Towson.
The Hall of Famer stated that Cincinnati transfer Dillon Mitchell will replace Providence transfer Bryce Hopkins next to Oziyah Sellers, Ian Jackson, Joson Sanon, and Zuby Ejiofor when the preseason slate begins.
“There’s going to be multiple starting lineups,” Pitino said, who did not start Kadary Richmond or RJ Luis in last year’s opening exhibition game. “But all ten guys will play. It’s not necessarily this is the top five, it’s just the five we’re going to go with against Towson.”
“It’s unimportant. Because it will change…We may need a bigger starting lineup against Michigan.”
Mitchell is one of the most experienced players on the Red Storm roster, starting 106 games over his three-year career that began with two seasons at Texas.
“I like Dillon Mitchell. Period,” Pitino explained on Thursday during St. John’s media day. “He’s just a selfless, really good basketball player that has the ability to be great and we’re working on the parts that need to get better.”
He averaged a career-high 9.9 points per game last season with the Bearcats while Hopkins has been sidelined for nearly two years with a knee injury.
“I remember getting recruited here when I was watching some of the St. John’s games last year, the starting lineups changed a lot,” Mitchell explained. “We have seven, eight starters on this team so you’re going to see it change up a lot, so nobody’s really worried about that right now.”
Towson was picked to finish first in the CAA Preseason Poll behind its star Tyler Tejada, who was named as the conference’s Preseason Player of the Year.