Nahiem Alleyne transfers to St. John’s

After entering the transfer portal earlier this week, Nahiem Alleyne has his destination. The 2023 national champion guard will spend his final collegiate season on Utopia Parkway playing for Rick Pitino and St. John’s, as announced via his Twitter account on Sunday night.

The Buford, Georgia native started the first eight games of the season for UConn and played in 35 of 39 games, averaging 18.3 minutes and 5.5 points per game. He came to Storrs after three seasons at Virginia Tech.

Pitino is attempting to re-build his roster after coming to St. John’s from Iona after going on the record at his introductory press conference that the winds of change are coming, with a litany of Red Storm departing the program, including AJ Storr, Andre Curbelo, David Jones and Posh Alexander.

This means that Pitino is likely counting on Alleyne to regain the shooting touch he had in Blacksburg over his three seasons in the ACC, in which he shot 38.7 percent over nearly 400 attempts. This cratered to 30.5 percent over 105 attempts this season.

With the many holes in the roster for St. John’s, Alleyne will be able to compete for a significant role on a squad that has a chance to make the NCAA Tournament if Pitino constructs the rest of the roster successfully. At UConn, which will surely be one of the favorites to cut down the nets at the end of the year again, high levels of playing time were far from guaranteed with such a strong freshman class coming in that’s flush with guards and wing players.