Koren Johnson Has Career Night to Lead Huskies Past Stanford

The reserve guard comes off the bench to score 30 points against the Cardinal.

The Stanford basketball team could have claimed it didn't know Koren Johnson. Never heard of him. Had no idea who he was.

At least if the Cardinal went off their first game against the University of Washington in the Bay Area — where he made a token appearance and went scoreless — that might have been believable.

On Thursday night at Alaska Airlines Arena, Johnson went from non-existent to showing up all over the floor against the Cardinal, coming off the bench to score a career-high 30 points in the opening half and get the Huskies headed to an 85-65 victory.

Johnson hit 12 of 18 shots and 6 of 10 3-pointers, including one from behind the line at the first-half buzzer to give the UW the lead for good at 40-38.

He stole the ball three times, scored twice and ended up on the floor practically each time.

His previous career best was 25 points in the season opener against Bellarmine. 

He had 4 assists to top off his all-around performance against the bewildered Cardinal (12-12, 7-7), who couldn't handle his quickness.

The 6-foot-2 guard from Seattle was the total opposite of the guy who was barely noticeable in Palo Alto a month earlier in a 90-80 setback.

"Tonight, I was hitting everything," he said.

Coming into this one, Johnson had scored in double figures just once in the previous eight games for the UW (14-11 overall, 6-8 Pac-12). Forward Keion Brooks backed him with 20 points, most coming on wind-up dunks.

Johnson credited Husky assistant coach Will Conroy with putting him on a regimen of making 300 shots a day, 50 each from a different spot on the floor.

Wearing lime green sneakers, he entered five minutes into the first half and kept the Huskies in a tightly played game, with his teammates unable to do much to stop Stanford's 7-foot-1 Maxime Raynaud or 6-foot-8 Brandon Angel, who combined for 29 first-half points. 

Johnson connected on 7 of 10 shots in the opening half, including 3 of 5 from 3-point range — and this after coming in as a 27.9 percent shooter for the season.

"Koren was the separator," UW coach Mike Hopkins said.

With his team down 22-18, he went charging in for layin, got fouled and was seated on the floor when the ball dropped through. 

With the score tied at 33 and the rest of the Huskies heading to the other end following a missed shot, Johnson came up with a steal, went in hard for a layin and ended up on the floor again.

His most memorable shot out of many came at the end of the first half. With the clock nearly at all zeroes, Johnson had the ball in his hands to the right of the hoop when someone yelled out, "Shoot it!" He did and the ball nestled in the basket while the crowd roared its approval.

Johnson turned and headed for the locker room, slapping a few teammates' hands without slowing much at all.

"That shot at the end of the first half gave us a lot of momentum," Brooks said. 

With the Huskies up by two at the break, they came out and scored the first 12 points of the second half to put this one out of reach.

Johnson, however, wasn't quite finished with his heroics as he came into the second half at the five-minute mark and proceeded to knock down a layin, a jumper and a 3-pointer, putting the UW ahead 61-47 with 10:19 left to play.

He drained a final 3 with 1:20 left to give the UW an 85-62 advantage, the crowd began chanting his name and Hopkins pulled him out so he could receive a well-deserved ovation.

"I wanted the appreciation for a local kid who takes so much pride in being a Husky," the coach said.

The Huskies return to action on Saturday against California at home, with a 5 p.m. tipoff. Koren Johnson will be there.

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