00:00Welcome back to Eye of the Storm, a St. John's video series presented by the New York Post.
00:05All right, so let's start with this, because St. John's, they got picked ahead of UConn to win the Big East.
00:11What do you think that says about the program's perception heading into year three under Rick Pitino?
00:16Look, they're preseason number five in the AP poll, which is the highest ever in program history.
00:24It's hard to find a national ranking or poll where they're not a top ten team.
00:29I mean, they brought in the top transfer class in the country.
00:32They bring in one of the best two-way forwards, you know, out there in Zuby Edge of Four.
00:36They have Rick Pitino.
00:38I think they're better on paper than they were last year.
00:41Now, is it going to translate? We'll see.
00:43They have a very different team.
00:45You know, they have better shooting.
00:47I think there's no question about that.
00:49They have more depth, especially up front.
00:50I think their front court is as good as there is in the country.
00:54Now, you know, everyone's going to wonder about the point guard situation.
00:57That's going to be the big question.
00:57You know, last year the question was shooting.
00:59This year it's going to be point guard, you know.
01:02They have Dylan Darling, big sky player there from Idaho State, who's probably going to come up the bench.
01:07He's like the one true point guard.
01:09And I think you'll see a lot of Dylan Mitchell as like a point forward.
01:12You'll see some of, you know, Isaiah Sellers, the Stanford transfer, Ian Jackson a little bit on the ball.
01:18But, you know, that's the real question is do they have that point guard?
01:22And is that going to lower their ceiling?
01:24Yeah, that's a big question with that.
01:25We'll get to Dylan Mitchell, who you mentioned there.
01:26We'll get to him a little bit later.
01:28There's a lot of expectations with this team, obviously, now.
01:32You said that you think they could be better than they were last year.
01:34And a lot of people feel that way.
01:36But what have you seen or heard from practices that validates those expectations that we have right now in the preseason?
01:43You know, they had two exhibition games.
01:44And the second one was against Michigan, who's preseason number seven.
01:48They lost in overtime.
01:50But the front court was tremendous.
01:52You know, and they're facing Michigan has a front court where they have two seven-footers.
01:57And then they have Yax Olenderberg, who's one of the best forwards in the country.
02:01They're not going to face a front court nearly as good as Michigan in the league all year.
02:04I mean, the only front court they're going to face that's even on par with Michigan, maybe he's Kentucky, when they go down to Atlanta and play them.
02:10I mean, this front court with Ejafor, with Dylan Mitchell, Bryce Hopkins, Ruben Prey is as good as there is in the country.
02:18I mean, they more than held their own against Michigan.
02:21Ejafor was tremendous.
02:23You saw Bryce Hopkins and Mitchell were both very good.
02:27They're going to create just teams in this league.
02:29There aren't teams in this league that are going to be able to match up with them inside.
02:31Now, it's on the guards to stretch the floor and, you know, hold their own so teams just can't completely collapse in the paint.
02:40But this front court is by far the best that I've seen St. John's.
02:46When I've covered the team, it's probably as good as they've ever had.
02:49I mean, they have four really, really good forwards.
02:51And, you know, most years if St. John's has two, it's a lot.
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