Mason has been one of the surprise stories of the season and their collective defensive unity has been a major part of their success. Offensively, a majority of the volume comes at the hands of Johnson. The second leading scorer in the conference, Johnson is super shifty on the ball and gets to the rim early and often. As a 6’0 guard who has only made eight 3-pointers on the season, Johnson’s ball skills and pace have to be elite for him to score at the rim at the rate he does. His aggressiveness as a driver pays off, he’s almost to 100 free throw attempts on the season already.

Mason got a clutch win in overtime on their home court in the opening game of the Coach Fleming era for the Comets. Johnson is their most experienced and talented player and he played like an all-conference level guard with multiple buckets out of isolation that left Kettering Fairmont defenders in the dust. Johnson’s toughest bucket of the game came on a snatch back dribble into a pull-up 3-pointer just before the halftime horn. Making key plays in overtime as well, Johnson had his fingerprints all over the victory for the Comets.

Johnson was one of the top point guards at the camp, getting where he wanted to off the dribble to create offense for himself. It seemed like hardly anybody could stay in front of Johnson at the point of attack as he can attack using both hands when driving to the basket. Taking it coast to coast, Johnson could grab a defensive rebound and push the basketball to the other side of the court and either score or find a teammate in a good position to score. Maybe my favorite play of Johnson all day was a no look dime that had the defense confused where the ball was headed and resulted in an easy shot for his teammate. One of the best point guards in the GMC, Johnson is a solid small college recruit.

I caught Johnson a few times at the Midwest Fall League in Cincinnati and he consistently was one of the top performers on the court with his ability to get places off the dribble and play in transition. This winter he led Mason in scoring at 13 PPG. Going into his senior year, I’ll be looking for Johnson to improve his efficiency and lower his turnovers, two areas where I believe he can grow in. The offensive ability and frame seems to be coming along which led to a lot of production as a junior, look for Johnson to take another leap and establish himself as one of the best guards in the GMC.

Johnson gave his best DeMar DeRozan impression to start Sunday’s action as I think he knocked down a mid-range jumper on three of the first four possessions of the game. A player with soft touch and the ability to rise up over smaller defenders and knock down contested jumpers. After getting going from that range to start, Johnson had some nice attacks off the dribble and had a sweet reverse layup at a key point of the championship game. Overall, I was really impressed with Johnson on Sunday.

We mentioned a few Mason Comets in the opening week and Johnson is our latest standout from the town where the fall league is hosted at. Johnson did a nice job of scoring on transition opportunities. Able to score at the rim in a variety of ways, Johnson had some acrobatic finishes where he had to twist and turn to avoid a shot blocker. Defensively, Johnson had active hands which helped start a couple fast-break opportunities.