“Rick Pitino has plans. Big plans”: Fans react as Xaivian Lee reportedly ditches Duke over St John’s and Florida
Princeton's Xaivian Lee is one of the top players left in the transfer portal. With the portal having opened on Mar, 24, there has been plenty of time for players to choose their destinations. The portal will remain open until Apr. 22, and as a result, most of the top players have picked their new schools.
However, Xaivian Lee is still in the portal as one of the top remaining players. On Tuesday, it was reported that he has reportedly narrowed down his options to two, Florida and St. John's.
With this news coming out, fans reacted on Instagram as Xaivian Lee narrowed his options for next year to St. John's and Florida. Fans appeared split on whether the Red Storm or Gators were a better option for Lee.
"(Rick) Pitino has plans. Big plans," one fan said.
"St. John’s is building something with these prospects," another fan said.
"Golden kept his star guard in when he wasn't playing his best.... Pitino benched him... Golden has developed at least 4 guards already in his young UF career," one fan said.
Fans continued to give their opinions in the comments section on Instagram.
"Petino kept his best player on the bench cuz he was having a bad game and didn’t coach him up," one fan said.
"Walt chose Florida instead of St Johns and won a chip bc of it that’s all," another fan said.
"There isn’t any better place to play than the Mecca of basketball NYC!," one fan said.
Xaivian Lee has spent the past three seasons as a member of the Princeton Tigers
Regardless of the team he chooses to commit to this spring, Xaivian Lee will be taking a big jump in terms of quality of competition and teammates. Although Princeton was a good team in its conference, finishing third in the Ivy League this past season, it is not on the same level as St. John's or Florida.
The Florida Gators won the National Championship this season, defeating two No. 1 seeds along the way in Auburn and Houston. While St. John's was upset in the second round of the tournament, they still qualified for the tournament as the No. 2 seed.
Conversely, Princeton did not qualify for the tournament. As a result, it will be interesting to see how Xaivian Lee performs against better competition next season. He averaged 16.9 points per game for Princeton last season.