More mature Meechie Johnson Jr. came back to Ohio State in pursuit of program history
COLUMBUS — Meechie Johnson Jr. is back at Ohio State. He didn’t want to leave in the first place.
So when the standout guard announced his commitment to the Buckeyes out of the transfer portal this offseason, Sonny Johnson — his uncle and high school head coach — was hardly surprised.
“My reaction was, I knew he didn’t want to leave, and I knew where he wanted to be,” Johnson, the longtime coach of Cleveland’s Garfield Heights, told Lettermen Row earlier this offseason. “You left because of situations, but you didn’t want to leave. He’s always dreamed of being a Buckeye.
“So [there] was no doubt in my mind that he was going to come back home.”
When Meechie Johnson Jr. originally transferred to South Carolina following the 2021-22 season, the Buckeyes were adopting a paradigm shift.
They were restocking their roster with the first of two straight On3 Industry Ranking top-10 recruiting classes. Then-head coach Chris Holtmann and now-former athletic director Gene Smith opted for a youth movement to hopefully drive Ohio State deeper into the NCAA Tournament than the Round of 32.
Things didn’t go to plan, of course.
Ohio State missed The Dance back-to-back seasons, both of which featured winter slumps: The first saw the Buckeyes drop 14-of-15 games between January and February, and the second included a 1-8 stretch in those same months a year later.
Smith fired Holtmann midseason this past February and promoted associated head coach Jake Diebler to interim head coach. Diebler resuscitated the program.
Ohio State won six of its next seven games, flirted with the NCAA Tournament bubble and ultimately bowed out in the NIT quarterfinals. Along the way, Diebler got the bump to full-time head coach from now-AD Ross Bjork. Less than a month later, Johnson pledged to Diebler, joining star point guard Bruce Thornton in the Buckeyes’ backcourt.
“It’s been a blessing coming back,” Johnson said last month. “It’s been an honor to be welcomed back. Since Coach Diebler has taken over, it’s been great. Being with Bruce, being with some of the other players he’s brought in. You could just tell the energy, the culture of like being at Ohio State and what it means. You can just feel it every day, when you in the weight room and when you in the gym.
“It’s just about winning. That’s where we headed.”
Ohio State guard Meechie Johnson Jr. looks on during the 2021-22 season. He wore a mask for part of the year after suffering a facial injury in practice. (Ron Johnson-USA TODAY Sports)
While Johnson’s in the same place where he started his college career, he’s not the same player or person who reclassified, graduated early from Garfield Heights and joined the Buckeyes midseason in 2020-21 — or the one who picked everything up and left his home state for Columbia, South Carolina, two offseasons ago.
“I’d say his growth as a man, as a leader, his maturity is different. He’s still the same fun-loving, hardworking,” Diebler said before pausing, “he’s not a kid, I guess he’s a young man now — I think some of those foundational things that make him the special person he is are still the same, but he’s grown as a leader. He’s matured.”
Johnson started just five games in his first two seasons with the Buckeyes. He appeared in 17 games his first year at Ohio State, averaging 5.8 minutes and 1.2 points per contest. His arrival proved critical given that, later that season, starting point guard CJ Walker suffered a hand injury and, after that, backup point guard Jimmy Sotos went down with a season-ending shoulder injury. But Johnson was playing his first competitive basketball in two years after missing his entire junior season at Garfield Heights while recovering from knee surgery.
To say Johnson was rusty his first year with the Buckeyes would have been an understatement. Last month, Diebler jokingly asked Johnson in the postgame interview room how long he lasted in his first workout with the team.
“10-15 minutes,” Johnson said, drawing laughter, including from Diebler.
The following season, Johnson averaged an increased 17.7 minutes and 4.4 points per game yet shot only 30.8% from the field. He scored in double figures against Bowling Green (13 points) and Xavier (14 points), but his game-winning 3-pointer against Seton Hall in the Fort Myers Tip-Off comes to mind first.
Still, a facial injury in practice sidelined him for three games and required him to wear a mask upon returning to the floor. Then he suffered a sprained ankle, which kept him out two additional outings.
At South Carolina, Johnson experienced, in his words, “a lot, a lot” of change. He went south with just his dog and evolved on and off the court.
“I was out there able to do so much more than just play basketball, while also just being able to lock in on that and have fun with the game,” Johnson said. “And I just learned that I’m a good character guy — like I’m not what media, what they had portrayed me probably when I was here — and that I’m a hard worker, and I’m focused and just so much more.
“That’s what I wanted to prove, that I’m a winner. And I feel like I proved that. But I want to do it here, and I want to do it with [Bruce] and all of you and everybody to see.”
Johnson emerged as an everyday starter for the Gamecocks. He ranked second on the team in scoring in 2022-23 and atop the South Carolina leaderboard in 2023-24. The 6-foot-2, 185-pound Johnson averaged 14.1 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game last year, leading South Carolina back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the Gamecocks’ Final Four run in 2017.
He scored 20 or more points 10 times, netting a season-high 29 points in a win over Notre Dame on Nov. 28. Although he still hasn’t recorded a single-season field goal percentage north of 40%, he’s turned into a volume scorer who has sunk 60-plus 3-pointers each of the last two years.
South Carolina guard Meechie Johnson Jr. attempts a shot against Georgia during the 2023-24 season. (Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports)
Playing for Findlay, Ohio, native Lamont Paris, Johnson helped turn the Gamecocks around, following up an 11-win season in 2022-23 with a 26-win season in 2023-24, complete with a 6-seed bid to March Madness this year, albeit one that was followed by a first-round exit.
“When I was here [at Ohio State], I was a part of two teams that went to the tournament,” Johnson said. “That taught me how to win. And that’s what I kind of took to South Carolina. That first year was kind of bad. But the second year I figured it out, went through some things in the summer, learned some things and was able to turn it around and win.”
Johnson continued: “That’s why I came back, to win. … I want to do something that ain’t been done in a couple of years. And that’s not just to get into the tournament but to win it. That’s the goal, just to make history.
“And that’s why we came back. That’s our purpose.”
Johnson’s “we” refers to him and Thornton, who was sitting beside him in the June press conference. Thornton is the lone returner from the On3 Industry Ranking’s ninth-best 2022 signing class, a five-man group that mostly flocked to the portal this offseason. That exodus included breakout guard Roddy Gayle Jr., who went north to rival Michigan.
Thornton, already a two-time captain, stuck around and now gets to play alongside Johnson.
“He’s an explosive scorer,” Thornton said last month of his new partner in crime. “He can score real fast and score explosively. He can literally go on a 7-0 run, an 8-0 run on his own. And he’s an underrated playmaker, I feel like. There are a lot of people who see him as just somebody that can really just score.
“But I feel like his playmaking and his voice are two things that go very underrated.”
Thornton is looking to learn from Johnson, who is older and, as Thornton noted, who has reached the NCAA Tournament before.
Diebler brought in transfers with winning experience, and Johnson headlines that group. He’s afforded the opportunity to finish what he started in a familiar place with a different level of maturity and a higher caliber of play.
“Meechie loves Ohio State,” Sonny Johnson said. “He’s been here. He understands what it’s like to be a Buckeye. And nothing would have stopped him from coming home.”
The post More mature Meechie Johnson Jr. came back to Ohio State in pursuit of program history appeared first on On3.
