St. John’s men’s basketball builds on stacked transfer class with Cincinnati forward Dillon Mitchell

The Red Storm bring in a hyper-athletic defensive stopper with March Madness experience

Rick Pitino and the Red Storm have secured a haul for the ages.

St. John’s has landed former consensus five-star recruit and Cincinnati transfer Dillon Mitchell on Wednesday afternoon, cementing the Johnnies as a clear preseason top-ten team.

The former McDonald’s All-American joins a massive transfer class that includes Bryce Hopkins from Providence, Ian Jackson from North Carolina, Oziyah Sellers from Stanford, and Joson Sanon from Arizona State.

Mitchell is one of the most athletic players to hit the transfer portal this offseason and can wreak havoc on both ends of the court. He brings high-flying explosiveness and a lob threat at the rim, does his best work in transition, and is a sneaky good passer, but he also guards multiple positions and disrupts passing lanes on defense.

Ranked as a top-10 recruit in the 2022 high school class, Mitchell began his college basketball career at Texas, where he started in all but one of his 72 career games with the Longhorns and averaged 6.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 0.9 assists on 60.2% shooting. He has also played in six NCAA Tournament games, reaching the Elite Eight as a freshman and the Second Round as a sophomore.

The native of Tampa, Florida entered the transfer portal last spring and drew interest from St. John’s before he committed to Cincinnati. Starting in all 35 games with the Bearcats, Mitchell averaged a career-best 9.9 points alongside 6.9 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and 1.4 steals per game as he shot 61.4% from the floor. Traditionally an inside-the-arc player before heading to the Queen City, Mitchell began showing flashes of an outside shooting touch by hitting ten of his 34 three-point attempts (29.4%) this season.

Mitchell becomes the fifth transfer addition of the offseason and the tenth scholarship player for St. John’s in the 2025-26 season. He projects as a backup big for Zuby Ejiofor after Vince Iwuchukwu entered the transfer portal before Tuesday night’s deadline.