When Brian Johnson was finishing up his senior year at Mount St. Joseph, everyonewas ready to tear him down. And nobody was willing to give him a chance.
“On the local message boards, they would talk about me like, ?Yeah, he?s dumb and he won?t make it to college,?” said Johnson, an Annapolis native.
Now, after spending a year at Winchendon School, a preparatory academy in Massachusetts, Johnson is the starting point guard for the University of Delaware basketball team as a freshman. It has been a long road from Mount St. Joseph.
“When I was at St. Joe, people started [recruiting] me towards the end of the year, but not what I wanted,” Johnson said. “When I went to prep school, a couple of schools were looking at me but they started to back off.”
Johnson returns to the Baltimore area tonight to face rival Towson at 7 p.m. ? the same Towson program that passed on Johnson after talking with him. Towson had junior transfer C.C. Williams in the fold, and incumbent point guard Tim Crossin was just heading into his sophomore season. Enter Delaware coach Monte Ross, who snatched Johnson from Winchendon.
“I thought he was a leader on the court,” Ross said of his first impression of Johnson at prep school. “I thought that he ran his team and controls his team. And that?s what I was looking for when I took over the job.”
Johnson, who has started all 19 games for the Blue Hens, is fourth on the team in scoring, averaging 7.7 points per game. He also leads the team in assists, averaging 4.58 per game.
The Blue Hens, collectively, have been struggling, with a 3-16 overall record and a 1-7 mark in conference play. That makes little difference to Johnson in the way he prepares for games. But tonight?s game, which should include plenty of friends and family in attendance, is especially important to him.
“Every game I play is a big game,” Johnson said. “But when you get to play against a rival or a team close to home, you want to go out with a bang andmake them say, ?We really should have gotten that kid.?”
The Johnson file
» Age: 19
» Height: 5-foot-10
» Weight: 185
» Did you know? Johnson led Mount St. Joseph to the Baltimore Catholic League title in 2003 and 2004 ? Led MSJ to the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association title in 2003 and 2005 ? He was named the BCL player of the year in his senior season ? Brother of Marcus Johnson, who played two seasons at the College of Charleston.
