How Donnie Freeman’s season-ending Achilles injury impacts St. John’s

New St. John’s forward Donnie Freeman will miss the entire 2026-27 season after suffering a torn Achilles injury, Rick Pitino revealed Wednesday. Freeman was a top 15-rated Syracuse transfer who picked St. John’s after a heated head-to-head recruiting battle with Kentucky.

Freeman, once a coveted five-star recruit in the Class of 2024, was expected to play a starring role in a renovated St. John’s frontcourt that had to replace a program record three NBA Draft selections in Big East Player of the Year Zuby Ejiofor, All-Big East forward Bryce Hopkins and All-Defense whiz Dillon Mitchell.

The 6-foot-9 junior was slated to waltz into St. John’s starting power forward slot after averaging 16.5 points and 7.2 rebounds last season at Syracuse.

“Donnie had a non contact injury in a workout,” Pitino wrote on social media. “Donnie is an awesome young man, we will get him back better than ever.”

What it means

The ceiling for St. John’s certainly takes a hit. With Freeman, St. John’s was ranked No. 11 in the Top 25 and 1, and it was tucked right next to UConn as a tier 1, national championship contender in the way-too-early Big East power rankings. Without Freeman, it gets a lot murkier for a team that was already heading into 2026-27 with plenty of fresh faces.

Senegalese 6-foot-8 forward Babacar Sane, who will turn 23 before the season, is expected to earn an expanded role. Sane played professionally in Germany last season, averaging 9.9 points and 3.8 rebounds in 16.7 minutes while shooting 34% from downtown on 3.9 attempts per game. But that 3-point shooting season is the high-water mark for Sane. Throughout his extensive 75-game sample size in the G-League, Sane shot just 27% from 3-point range and 63% at the free-throw line. Defense and athleticism have to be the bigger tenets of Sane’s game. Settling for jumpers is a staple of Sane’s tape, but that can’t sustain, or he’ll have a date with the pine under Pitino.

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But it’s going to take a little bit more from everybody. While Freeman possessed one of the highest ceilings on the roster, St. John’s has a cavalry of All-Big East talent who will be expected to raise their level to make up the gap.

Incoming veteran point guard Quinn Ellis was a starter in the EuroLeague, widely regarded as the second-best basketball league in the world after the NBA. He’s coming to the Big East for a payday north of $4 million, with the expectation that he can be one of the best point guards in the country.

Baylor transfer Tounde Yessoufou was a massive last-second coup in the transfer portal. Yessoufou is a high-energy downhill maven who wills himself to double figures every night and has real All-Big East upside if the development with his handle and jumper improves.

Then, there’s the pair of returners like Ian Jackson and Ruben Prey. A point guard like Ellis could serve as a massive boon for Jackson’s upside now that he’s shifting to an off-ball, score-first role instead of being shoehorned into the point guard duties. The Year 2 transfer jump has been an important variable in roster-building, and Pitino believes Jackson possesses Big East Player of the Year upside if his production starts to match his potential. Prey is also a logical breakout candidate. The 6-foot-11 big man showed flashes of being a true stretch 5, which will be essential to keep the paint clear for Ellis, Jackson and Yessoufou to get downhill and pressure the tin.

A devastating injury like this certainly means this Johnnies’ offense will be even more concentrated now. There is no debate about who the engine of this team will be. It’s Ellis. I’d expect the ball to be in his hands a ton to create advantages for Yessoufou, Jackson, Sane and Prey both in the halfcourt and in transition. One initial hesitation with the St. John’s roster build was whether this offense could get a little “your turn, my turn” with Freeman, Yessoufou and Ellis needing the ball in their hands to be effective.

That’s out of the window now. Get ready for the Ellis show, assuming he can clear the NCAA’s untimely red tape for international products.

Potential hiccups

Pitino-coached teams always play with real force and ferociousness, but St. John’s rebounding outlook takes a real hit without Freeman in the mix. St. John’s has ranked inside the top three in offensive rebound rate in conference play through each of Pitino’s first three seasons at the helm. That’s coaching, just as much as it is personnel. There was always a risk that the offensive rebounding goes down without Ejiofor, Hopkins and Mitchell — three elite offensive rebounders for their respective positions — but that is even more dicey now without Freeman.

Thankfully, offensive rebounding is a major part of Yessoufou’s game. The 6-foot-5 wing plays like a power forward and ripped down multiple offensive rebounds in 26 of 33 games last year at Baylor. Yessoufou and Prey are going to have to be beasts if St. John’s wants to make second-chance points a huge part of its arsenal again.

The loss of Freeman also erases some added lineup versatility. A potential jumbo 5-man lineup of Ellis, Yessoufou, Sane, Freeman and Prey was primed to potentially be a real asset for this St. John’s coaching staff. If Pitino wants to go extra big, he now needs young developmental bigs like Theo Edema or Lazar Stojkovic to get up to speed in a jiffy.