Tre Johnson leads Link Academy basketball to season-opening win over SEMO Prep
BRANSON, MISSOURI – The new-look Link Academy basketball team got off to a bit of a slow start in its season opener against visiting SEMO Prep on Wednesday night.
The reigning GEICO national champions trailed by six points after the first quarter before standout senior guard Tre Johnson and the Lions got rolling.
Johnson, the No. 4 prospect in the Class of 2024, scored a game-high 14 points to lead Link Academy to an 83-46 victory against SEMO Prep.
“They came out and sat in a 2-3 zone and we got stagnant offensively and then we missed a bunch of shots and when that happens, you start losing concentration everywhere and it allowed them to make a few open shots and they took the lead on us,” said second-year Link Academy head coach Bill Armstrong. “I was proud of our guys for responding. We gave up 19 points in the first quarter and only 27 the rest of the game, so I think we turned the defense up once we started making a few shots.”
SEMO Prep sank four 3-pointers in the opening quarter to take a 19-13 lead.
Link Academy (1-0), the No. 3 team in the SBLive/Sports Illustrated Top 25 national high school boys basketball preseason rankings, outscored SEMO Prep 29-5 in the second quarter and then pulled away in the second half.
Armstrong said Johnson, a 6-foot-6 senior shooting guard from Dallas who has narrowed his choices to Baylor and Texas, led the team in the huddle going into the second quarter and got everybody fired up.
“Tre’s a competitor,” the coach said. “He wants to win and it doesn’t matter who he is playing, he wants to show that he’s the best player. … Tre is a phenomenal talent with an unbelievable motor. He’s just competitive every single day.”
Johnson scored four points in the first quarter, then five in the second and five in the third. He knocked down a pair of 3-pointers.
“I feel like I stepped into the leader role Day 1 I got here,” Johnson said, “just talking on defense … leading by just my actions and my ways but also being vocal.”
Senior forwards Jalen Shelley (Arkansas signee) and Brandon Benjamin added 10 points apiece, while senior guards Labaron Philon (Kansas) and Antonio “T.O.” Barrett (Missouri) added nine points each. Senior center James Brown (North Carolina) scored eight points.
“We picked it up defensively,” Barrett said. “We got used to the zone. We really weren’t expecting that, facing a zone. We came out defensively with more pressure, more intensity, and we turned it up a notch and it worked.”
Wight Lomax led SEMO Prep with 12 points, including three 3-pointers. Riley Wolf added 10 points, including two 3’s, while Matt Hampton had nine points on three 3-pointers.
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- Nate Latsch | latsch@scorebooklive.com | @SBLiveMiz
