From no early contact to a commitment, here's what led Meechie Johnson back to Ohio State
The speculation started the minute that his name hit the transfer portal. After two seasons at South Carolina, Meechie Johnson Jr. was looking for a new school for his final year of college basketball.
Immediately, the dots were being connected between Johnson, his home state and the school where he started his career. There was just one problem.
“When he first got in the portal, we didn’t hear from Ohio State for the first three days or so,” his father, Demetrius Johnson Sr., said.
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The list of schools to reach out was lengthy. Kentucky, Texas A&M, Memphis, Providence and others were calling about the second-team all-SEC player who averaged 14.1 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.9 assists while starting 33 games for the Gamecocks in 2023-24. But the Buckeyes? The school where Johnson Jr. suited up for his first two seasons before transferring after the 2021-22 season?
It’s ultimately where Johnson Jr. committed, a homecoming years in the making. Yet when he made the decision to leave South Carolina, it wasn’t to clear a path back to the Buckeyes.
“When he left (South Carolina), it wasn’t in my head that he would even come back to Ohio State,” his dad said. “Leaving, the last thing you’re thinking is coming back home. People started mentioning Ohio State and he was like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ but it ended up working out.”
After tough time at Ohio State, Meechie Johnson thrived at South Carolina
Although Johnson was a freshman for the 2020-21 season, his season was an abbreviated one. After missing his junior season of high school basketball due to a torn ACL, Johnson was set to play at Garfield Heights, Ohio, when Ohio State and coach Chris Holtmann presented a unique opportunity to him. With the NCAA awarding an extra year of eligibility to all players who participated during the season played inside empty arenas amid the pandemic, Johnson was able to graduate high school early and join the program midseason.
During the preseason, Ohio State had lost the services of graduate transfer guard Abel Porter, who collapsed during a workout and was found to have a career-ending heart condition. That thinned a backcourt led by CJ Walker, Duane Washington Jr. and Jimmy Sotos, and Johnson’s presence would be needed especially when Sotos was lost for the season with a shoulder injury. Surrounded by family and friends inside Harvest Time Evangelistic Ministries Worship Center on the east side of Cleveland, Johnson announced that he would join the Buckeyes in mid-December, 2020.
He played in 17 games that season, averaging 1.2 points in 5.8 minutes per appearance. That grew to 4.4 points in 17.7 minutes per game in 2021-22, but Johnson missed time with a concussion and a facial fracture that forced him to wear a cage-like mask for part of the season. When Ohio State’s season came to an end against Villanova in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Johnson cried in the locker room.
That spring, Johnson Jr. announced his plans to transfer, and he signed with South Carolina.
“I don’t want to get into all that,” his father said of the decision to leave Ohio State. “When you grow up, as a kid your dream is to get to Ohio State and play for Ohio State. Then when you have to make the decision to leave, that was probably one of the hardest things to do. Very emotional, but at the time we felt like it was the best decision for him to do but it was tough.”
In a season and a half, Johnson totaled 43 appearances for the Buckeyes, averaging 3.2 points and 0.8 assists while shooting 31.9% from the floor and 34.4% from 3.
It would be a different story at South Carolina, where under new coach Lamont Paris Johnson averaged 12.7 points, 3.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists while playing in 30 of 32 games and starting 29 of them. The Gamecocks went 11-21, but the 2023-24 season would be something different.
As South Carolina came within a game of winning an SEC regular-season championship and reached the NCAA Tournament, Johnson powered the Gamecocks by scoring 14.1 points per game, shooting a career-best 39.9% (156 for 391) from the floor and going 60 for 187 (32.1%) from 3. Johnson topped the 20-point mark in 10 games while earning all-conference honors for the first time in his career.
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Numbers aside, Johnson Sr. said it was rewarding to see his son prove what kind of player he could be.
“A lot of people when he left Ohio State felt, ‘Why would he go to the SEC? He couldn’t do it at Ohio State, couldn’t do it at this level,’ ” Johnson Sr. said. “He got back to who he was, just being free to make plays. He was able to find who he was in some of his younger days and gain that confidence back.”
Asked which situation was harder for his son to leave, Johnson Sr. said both.
“South Carolina, that was tough to leave there, too,” he said. “The way they embraced him, his relationship with the whole coaching staff, coach Paris, that was a hard decision to leave. It’s like he went down there and became Meechie Johnson again on the basketball court. That was a tough decision to leave there, too.”
What brought Meechie Johnson back to Ohio State?
Although Meechie Johnson was no longer a Buckeye, his father remained in contact with coach Chris Holtmann and associate head coach Jake Diebler, who had helped recruit him to the school.
“I always felt like even though certain things didn’t work out the first time around that they still played a big role in my son’s life so I’ll never forget that and always stayed in contact with those guys when he left,” he said.
The Johnson family remained Ohio State fans, he said, and when the Buckeyes reached out with Diebler now in place as head coach, their relationship was quickly rekindled. Asked why Ohio State was the right fit for Johnson Jr.’s final season, his father pointed to the coach.
“I think the relationship that Meechie had with Diebler,” Johnson Sr. said. “He has complete trust in him. He was able to sit down, talk some things out.”
Since moving into first the interim and then the head coaching position, Diebler has espoused a desire for Ohio State to play with more pace. The Buckeyes increased their tempo in the 11 games they played after Holtmann was fired midseason and that will be a guiding belief as Diebler works to fill out the 2024-25 roster via the transfer portal.
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Ohio State will utilize a number of three-guard lineups under Diebler, and Johnson Sr. said the coach’s plans for how to use his son fit what they were looking for in a school.
“He doesn’t really want to change him,” Johnson Sr. said. “He wants to help him. He wants to tweak some stuff, have him fit into his system. He’s going back mature, seasoned and he knows how to make it happen. Whatever that means, he knows how to come in as a veteran and fit into the system and win. He wants to win.”
Monday night, Johnson Sr. said his son had decided that he would commit to Ohio State. He advised him to go home, pray on it overnight and make his decision in the morning. Tuesday, he publicly announced his commitment in a statement released by THE Foundation, the primary collective supporting the Ohio State men’s basketball program.
In it, he began by describing himself as “a lifelong Buckeye” and closed with three words: “I’m coming home.”
The journey has come full circle. Here comes the final chapter.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State's Meechie Johnson returns to Buckeyes, Jake Diebler
