{"id":715836,"date":"2026-04-22T12:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/715836\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:12:18","slug":"st-johns-basketball-news-ian-jackson-makes-final-decision-on-2026-27-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/715836\/","title":{"rendered":"St. John&#8217;s basketball news: Ian Jackson makes final decision on 2026-27 return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>St. John&#8217;s will have to replace its top-three scorers, but it <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/ncaa-basketball\/st-johns-basketball-news-ruben-prey-returning-after-march-madness-breakout\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">confirmed a key return for the 2026-2027 college basketball season<\/a>, with guard Ian Jackson set to run it back.<\/p>\n<p>Jackson spent his sophomore season with St. John&#8217;s after beginning his college basketball career at North Carolina. He <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JoeTipton\/status\/2046701249135796477\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">confirmed his return<\/a> to the Red Storm on Tuesday, the final day of the transfer portal, according to Joe Tipton of On3 Sports.<\/p>\n<p>Jackson will be St. John&#8217;s top returning scorer after averaging 9.4 points per game in his first season under Rick Pitino. The team&#8217;s top-three scorers from its 2026 Sweet Sixteen run \u2014 Zuby Ejiofor, Bryce Hopkins and Oziyah Sellers \u2014 have all exhausted their NCAA eligibility.<\/p>\n<p>Although Jackson played a modest role for St. John&#8217;s last season, he is among the top 2026-2027 breakout candidates in college basketball. The Bronx, New York, native is a former five-star recruit and was rated one of the top-10 prospects of the 2024 freshman class.<\/p>\n<p>Jackson&#8217;s return is a big win for Pitino, who just received a massive commitment from the transfer portal. St. John&#8217;s got the news of Jackson&#8217;s return one day after <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/ncaa-basketball\/st-johns-basketball-news-red-storm-scores-big-transfer-portal-win-with-donnie-freeman\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">winning the bidding war for Syracuse transfer Donnie Freeman<\/a>, another former five-star prospect.<\/p>\n<p>Freeman joins Jackson and March Madness star Ruben Prey as the foundations of Pitino&#8217;s 2026-2027 roster, which has otherwise suffered several stinging losses. In addition to the departing seniors, the Red Storm lost guards Dylan Darling and Joson Sanon, along with incoming four-star prospect Imran Soljanovic, who recently decommitted and signed with New Mexico.<\/p>\n<p>St.  John&#8217;s will have to replace its top-three scorers, but it confirmed a key return for the 2026-2027 college basketball season, with guard Ian Jackson set to run it back.  Jackson spent his sophomore season with St.  John&#8217;s after beginning his college basketball career at North Carolina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. John&#8217;s will have to replace its top-three scorers, but it confirmed a key return for the 2026-2027&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,36019],"class_list":{"0":"post-715836","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-ncaab","13":"tag-st-johns-basketball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116448299805423746","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}