The offseason only started this week, yet the Red Storm have their eyes on several top players in the portal and already arranged visits for a couple of power-conference transfers they hope to land.
First reported by Dushawn London of 247Sports and Zach Braziller of the New York Post, former Kansas State guard Abdi Bashir, Jr., and former Kentucky forward Mouhamed Dioubate are expected to visit the St. John’s campus early next week.
Both transfers are ranked as four-star by 247Sports, and each has
experience playing in the tri-state area. Bashir spent his first two seasons of college ball at Monmouth in New Jersey, averaging 13.2 points on 37.8% shooting from the floor and 38.4% from three, breaking out as a sophomore with a team-high 20.1 points per game. Dioubate is a Queens native who attended Flushing’s John Bowne High School before transferring to Putnam Science Academy in Connecticut.
The sharpshooting Abdi Bashir made the high-major leap last season when he moved closer to his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, and transferred to Kansas State. With the Wildcats, Bashir ranked second on the team in scoring with 13.2 points per game on 42.1% shooting and 44.4% from three on 8.4 attempts per contest, but a stress fracture in his foot ended his junior season after 18 games.
Although Bashir doesn’t exactly fit the bill of the physical two-way type of guard Pitino typically recruits, the junior guard is a lethal microwave shooter who can fire over defenders with his 6-foot-7 stature and knock down shots at all three levels. The standout performance of his junior campaign came against an eventual Second Weekend team in Nebraska last November when he scored 26 points on 7-of-15 from three in a razor-thin 86-85 loss for the Wildcats.
He can also create for others as a shooting guard, holding a respectable 16.9% assist rate as a junior, which was better than those of Ian Jackson (13.4%), Oziyah Sellers (10.0%), and Joson Sanon (5.8%).
Dioubate is a more obvious fit for St. John’s. The rising senior forward averaged 8.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.0 steals, and 1.0 blocks per game on 54.2% shooting and 21.4% from three.
It’s clear in recruiting Mouhamed Dioubate that Pitino wants a tempo-pushing, defensive-minded wing who can replicate what Dillon Mitchell brought to the 2025-26 Red Storm. He is somewhat undersized at the power forward position, standing at 6-foot-7, but he makes up for it with his blend of quickness and brute strength to carve out space inside, and his long wingspan to force rejections and frustrate opposing shooters. Dioubate can start fastbreaks with his underrated ball-handling ability, maintaining the transition scoring prowess the Johnnies had with Mitchell.
Pitino and his staff aren’t stopping at Bashir and Dioubate, casting a wide net to fill out the six scholarship vacancies for the 2026-27 season. St. John’s is linked to gritty Georgetown guard KJ Lewis and Arizona State freshman center Mor Massamba Diop, a 7-foot-1 big man with an intriguing skillset. The Johnnies are also in the running for star center Flory Bidunga, who won last season’s Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year award with Kansas. Bidunga is considering offers from the Red Storm, Michigan, Duke, and Louisville.
