Rick Pitino lands exciting Indiana transfer

It’s late in the college basketball offseason, but the transfer portal suddenly became alive within the past couple of weeks as several players from the class of 2022 were just granted a fifth season of eligibility following a court ruling. One of those players was former Indiana forward Reed Bailey who recently committed to Rick Pitino and St. John’s via the transfer portal, as per Pete Nakos of On3.

Earlier on Tuesday afternoon, Reed Bailey had entered the transfer portal with a ‘do not contact’ tag, and before the end of the day he had chosen St. John’s as his next destination. When players enter the portal with such a designation, it usually means one of two things, that either they already know their next destination or they want to reach out to the programs they’re interested in rather than the other way around.

Bailey joins the Red Storm after having played last season at Indiana. He began his college basketball career at Davidson where he played for three seasons before entering the transfer portal and committing to the Hooisers amid the hiring of Darian DeVries as the new head coach.

Last year, he appeared in 32 games, including 10 starts, at a little over 19 minutes per game. He averaged 8.3 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.1 assists with splits of 57 percent shooting from the field, 25 percent shooting from the 3-point line and 75.7 percent shooting from the free-throw line.

Bailey joins a St. John’s team that finished last season at 30-7 and reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.