WKU Basketball: Justin Johnson Year-in-Review
Leading up to the Hilltoppers’ season, we ran a player preview for each Topper and to begin Justin Johnson’s preview, I stated the…
Leading up to the Hilltoppers’ season, we ran a player preview for each Topper and to begin Justin Johnson’s preview, I stated the following:
If the Hilltoppers want to be successful this year, Justin Johnson is going to have to play a big, big role.
Turns out that is exactly what happened and I don’t think anyone saw it coming.
JJ turned in a career year and led the Tops as a team in points (15.7) and rebounds (9.5) on the year becoming not only the pivotal player on the floor for the Hilltoppers, but the player I had been waiting for him to become his entire career.
At the outset of the year I thought he’d be the counterpiece to Dwight Coleby, but for the most part it was basically the other way around. I have no doubt in my mind it was facing Coleby day in and day out in practice that upped his game.
And while we knew what kind of threat he was on the boards already, his scoring prowess was still largely untapped but not for long. JJ started the season by scoring double figures in 10 of the first 12 games and closed the year by scoring double figures in the last 17 contests, regular season, C-USA tournament and NIT combined.
The biggest and at times most game-changing element of his game was in Johnson’s three-point shooting, which developed out of seemingly nowhere. His 41.6% three-point shooting percentage blew his previous best (38.8% in 2016/17) out of the water and he attempted three per game (often times without hesitation and often times to warm up as they came early).
While the Tops didn’t flow along with Johnson as much as they did with someone like, say, Darius Thompson, you could definitely count on JJ to come up with a key bucket or rebound if the Tops desperately needed one.
Ask anyone before this season started, I was ready to write JJ off as a dud. Now, he’s the player I least want to leave the Hill and he has swung me over into a JJ for lyfe kind of fellow.
Before this season, it appeared he was aiming to take the George Fant route of playing professional ball by giving football a chance, but that didn’t last past summer workouts and now he’s hoping to find a landing spot on the pro hardwood.
The 2017/18 season was a rousing success for JJ and it’s a shame it ended in heartbreak. Twice.