Former Tennessee center Handje Tamba is transferring to play for Rick Pitino and St. John’s basketball, Fox Sports’ Jordan Schultz first reported on Tuesday.
It’s been a while since Tamba was wearing orange-and-white. The big man spent his first collegiate season at Tennessee, redshirting as part of the Vols’ 2021-22 team that won the SEC Tournament for the first time since 1979.
Tamba transferred to Weber State after his year in Knoxville, spending two seasons in the Wildcats’ program. He averaged 1.6 points and 1.6 rebounds per game in his redshirt freshman season and 1.8 points and 1.5 rebounds in his redshirt freshman season.
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After struggling to grab a major role in two seasons at Weber State, Tamba transferred to NAIA Milligan University in East Tennessee. Tamba averaged 10.5 points and 8.9 rebounds per game last season at Milligan before looking for other opportunities in the portal.
A native of the Congo, Tamba played his prep basketball at Knoxville Catholic where he graduated a year early to join the Tennessee basketball program.
Now Tamba is back in big time college basketball, transferring to play for Pitino and the Red Storm. St. John’s was one of college basketball’s resurgent program’s last season winning the Big East Regular-Season Championship and the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden.
The Red Storm earned a two-seed in the NCAA Tournament but their season came to an end in the Round of 32 when Arkansas upset St. John’s. Expectations are high for Pitino’s third team in Queens as the Red Storm return some key players and have a solid transfer class coming in.
