COLUMBUS — Ohio State basketball is bringing one of its former players back home for his final year of college basketball.
Meechie Johnson started his college career as a Buckeye showing up halfway through the 2020-21 season to spend the rest of the year learning behind CJ Walker before stepping into his role as the program’s future point guard. But his career took him down a different path.
Now he’s back hoping to have a better ending to his time in Columbus than how the previous two years went as the first transfer addition of the Jake Diebler era.
Johnson’s first two seasons with Ohio State had a few loud moments such as a game-winning buzzer-beater against Seaton Hall in 2021, but for the most part were OK at best. He saw action in 43 games (including five starts) but averaged 3.2 points on 31.9% shooting. As a smaller combo guard, it didn’t look as if he’d fit into the Buckeyes’ future given the recruiting class coming behind him so he entered the transfer portal landing with South Carolina.
His first season with the Gamecocks saw him average 12.7 points for a below .500 team sitting near the bottom of the SEC in Lamont Paris’ first year as head coach. This past season he helped lead the major turnaround averaging a team-high 14.1 points per game while South Carolina earned its first 20-win season and NCAA Tournament bid since 2017.
Johnson has one year of eligibility remaining and he’s using it to return to the place where his career once started again looking to help a new head coach bring a program back to prominence. This time he’ll do so for the coach who spear-headed his recruitment in Jake Diebler with a roster that closed out a disappointing 2023-24 season by building up as much momentum as possible heading into a new era.
