Inside The Huskies

As UW Season Winds Down, Johnson Is Having His Coming-Out Party

The sophomore guard has been on a tear for three games now.

Dan Raley

In this story:

As the University of Washington basketball team turns to Arizona on Saturday, it has four regular-season games remaining.

Unless the eighth-place Huskies (15-12 overall, 7-9 league) win the Pac-12 tournament, the NCAAs likely are out of the question.

They're coming off a messy game in which they blew a 25-point lead before emerging with an overtime victory over Arizona State in Tempe.

A coaching change, with a new athletic director evaluating a long-time coach amid a lingering program malaise, could be in the offing.

Looking for positives with this UW team, something to keep everyone's attention is reserve sophomore guard Koren Johnson.

For two weeks now, he's been as productive as anyone on his basketball team, let alone across a conference soon to break up.

In his past three outings, the 6-foot-2 Johnson has scored a career-best 30 points against Stanford, dropped in 16 against California and posted 17 against Arizona State.

He does this entering the game at the five-minute mark of each half.

He does this playing alongside the league's leading scorer in Keion Brooks at 21.1. 

For perspective, Brooks has scored 67 points in the past three games to Johnson's 63.

Still, he curiously does this as a sub, with coach Mike Hopkins unwilling to change up his opening lineup and offer him a reward.

"I'm comfortable with it," Johnson said. "Everybody wants to be like in the starting lineup and stuff, but I'm comfortable coming off the bench. I come in and get people involved and play defense and add scoring to that, too."

While it's easy to second guess the coach on this, and Hopkins has invested this season on a starting lineup of veteran portal transfers culled over the past two years — including two from Kentucky and one each from Rutgers, Portland and Fresno State — Johnson is the one local guy, a Seattle product who seemingly will become a program building block, especially once the others are gone.

Johnson probably could play better defense, but his energy and offensive prowess right now are unmatched for a team playing out the string.

Why not reward him with a start against Arizona at McKale Center?

Husky assistant coach Will Conroy helped get this guard back to productive levels — Johnson had scored in double figures just once in eight previous games before his recent splurge. Conroy insisted he make 300 shots a day, 50 at six different spots, to regain his stroke, and he did just that.

"Coach Dub said the shooting was going to come and tonight I was making everything," Johnson after putting up 30 on Stanford.

Johnson went scoreless in his first outing against the Cardinal in the Bay Area. Hopkins sat him down after he apparently came out unfocused that night in a game the Huskies lost 90-80.

"The coach said I was a little lagging on defense," the young guard said. "I was kind of sitting there and cheering my teammates on."

As this season winds up, most of the players are seniors and will move. Hopkins may not have a choice on whether he returns for another season. He might not want to.

Johnson could be the only thing recognizable when that time comes. He currently averages 10 points a game for the season. In his three most recent games, he's shot 24 of 42 from the floor and 9 of 18 from 3-point range. He's also dished out a dozen assists.

He easily could be the centerpiece of the future UW basketball team, no matter who's running things. The challenge will be to keep him from looking elsewhere as the program starts over once more.

His interest in Husky basketball is at a very high level right now. The trick is to keep it there.

Go to si.com/college/washington to read the latest Inside the Huskies stories — as soon as they’re published. Not all stories are posted on the fan sites.

Find Inside the Huskies on Facebook by searching: Inside Huskies/FanNation at SI.com or https://www.facebook.com/dan.raley.12

Follow Dan Raley of Inside the Huskies on Twitter: @DanRaley1 or @UWFanNation or @DanRaley3

Have a question, direct message me on Facebook or Twitter.

Published
Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

Home/Basketball