Is St. John's much better than last season?

Is this St. John’s team the best one we’ve seen in years? They’ve started the season with key losses to ranked teams Alabama, Auburn and a 1 point nailbiter against Iowa State. How can they possibly be better than their 2 seeded ranked tournament team from last season? We can look to KenPom and see key differences from the team now from just a season ago and how both teams are almost opposites. Last year's team had the 2nd ranked defense in the country but ranked 68th offensively losing to the 64th ranked offense in Arkansas in the second round of the tournament. Leading scorer RJ Luis was benched in the final five minutes of that game due to his poor shooting performance. How can a team’s leading scorer for a top 10 team in the country be benched in a potentially season ending game? 

Fast forward to this season St John’s now has a KenPom offense ranked 8th and a defense almost in the top 25 sitting at 29th. They have four out of their top six scorers shooting above 35% from deep whereas just a season ago they had only one player shooting above that mark from range and barely doing so at 35.2%. Three out of their top six scorers are shooting above 40% from deep, clearly bringing an offense that was not seen at all last season while still being good defensively. Considering they have numerous transfers including leading scorer Bryce Hopkins and Ian Jackson could just mean there's an adjustment period of being on a brand new team. Their losses to teams like Alabama who have a backcourt that’s played together throughout numerous tournaments already could be almost expected so early on. This St. John’s offense is by far the best they’ve had in the Pitino era and come March we do expect more from this team than a first weekend exit.