{"id":125242,"date":"2025-08-07T03:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T03:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125242\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T03:00:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T03:00:13","slug":"early-signs-point-to-st-johns-enjoying-unheard-of-frontcourt-luxury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125242\/","title":{"rendered":"Early signs point to St. John&#8217;s enjoying unheard-of frontcourt luxury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There were stretches<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/08\/05\/sports\/st-johns-plans-to-run-point-less-system-with-roster-full-of-talent\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> in Tuesday\u2019s scrimmage<\/a> when Ruben Prey was St. John\u2019s best forward. The most active of the Red Storm\u2019s big men, cleaning up the glass, making shots, creating shots for others.<\/p>\n<p>Coming off a freshman year in which he progressed late in the season, the Portuguese forward was impressive. Early on, he blocked a shot on one end and hit a 3-pointer on the other. He finished with 15 points, nine rebounds and four assists, and a plus-33 rating.<\/p>\n<p>Later on, Dillon Mitchell shined as a rim protector, ball handler and finisher. Zuby Ejiofor, the likely Big East preseason player of the year, and Providence transfer Bryce Hopkins also had strong moments.<\/p>\n<p>At least in Tuesday\u2019s open practice, the frontcourt has the makings of being elite. Ejiofor, the backbone to St. John\u2019s second-ranked defense a year ago, was always the given after his breakout winter. Prey appears to have made a leap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were stretches in Tuesday\u2019s scrimmage when Ruben Prey was St. John\u2019s best forward. The most active of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":125243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,2076,1317,1337,1338,30692,62,2225,1378,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-125242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-rick-pitino","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-sports-plus","16":"tag-st-johns-red-storm","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114985253213752525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}