St. Johns is coming off about as bad of a season as anyone could have imagined in Chris Mullin's first year as head coach. Many considered St. Johns to be the worst power conference team in the nation outside of Rutgers, and they weren't wrong considering that they finished 8-24 and 1-17 in Big East play.
With Mullin in as the head coach, though, the hope for a brighter future has always been there considering that he is a legend and he played for the Red Storm. That bright future looks like it might show itself as soon as next year, but Mullin is looking for sustained excellence.
The Johnnies will bring in the 21st ranked recruiting class in the nation next season, which should lead to exponential improvement from year one to year two. On Thursday morning, though, the Red Storm received some good news for beyond next season when former Michigan State forward Marvin Clark Jr. announced that he would be transferring to St. Johns.
Clark will have to sit out a year, but he will be eligible to play in the 2017-18 season and one more year after that. The 6-foot-6 forward out of Wichita, Kansas, played two seasons with the Spartans but decided after this past year that he would leave the school to look for an opportunity for more playing time. Clark appeared in 30 games for the Spartans last seaso,n but he only played 9.7 minutes per game, and with Michigan State bringing in one of the top recruiting classes in the nation, he felt it was time to move on.
Clark is a former three-star recruit in the class of 2014, where he was targeted by Indiana, Kansas State and Oregon among other schools. The former Spartan actually saw more playing time as a freshman than he did as a sophomore, but the fact that he made 42 percent of his threes this past season particularly intrigued the Red Storm.
While Clark has already committed to the Johnnies, they are not done with adding transfers. St. Johns is still going hard after Arizona transfer Justin Simon, who just visited the campus, and Arkansas State graduate transfer Anthony Livingston, who wouldn't have to sit out a year. Both of those players are among the top players transferring this year, and St. Johns is said to have a good shot at getting both.