5-star '24 SG Tre Johnson "surprised and honored" to earn Kentucky offer
When the contact period opened up on June 15 — the first day that college coaches could make personal contact with rising high school juniors — Tre Johnson didn’t expect to be one of the first prospects contacted by the Kentucky Wildcats.
The class of 2024 five-star recruit is down in North Augusta this week, playing up an age group with the Team Griffin 17U squad at the 2022 Nike Peach Jam Invitational. KSR was able to watch the 6-foot-5 shooting guard and talk with him afterward for a short interview on Tuesday. Johnson battled the likes of DJ Wagner, Aaron Bradshaw, and the rest of the NJ Scholars in that contest, finishing with 20 points, six rebounds, and two assists on 8-20 shooting.
Team Griffin came up short, falling to the Scholars 73-57, but Johnson wowed the packed crowd with tough jump shots from all over the floor, including ones from a few feet behind the 3-point arc. He even had LeBron James wondering who this young baller was.
Johnson earned a handful of offers on that day in the middle of June: Kentucky, Duke, Auburn, and LSU. At the time, Johnson didn’t expect to hear from the ‘Cats. Just a month earlier, UK was undergoing a coaching staff shakeup with assistant Jai Lucas heading to Duke. Just a week before the contact period opened, head coach John Calipari brought KT Turner on board as the new assistant.
It was Lucas who offered Johnson on Duke’s behalf, and Turner on Kentucky’s.
“Surprised and honored to see that they were watching me, they know that I have a good future,” Johnson said on Tuesday of Kentucky. “I didn’t know they were looking at me at the time. And then Jai (Lucas) had left, so I didn’t know who was still there recruiting.”
Johnson added that he was equally as shocked to receive his Duke offer. He play his high school basketball in Texas, a state that both Lucas and Turner and very familiar with.
Along with Kentucky and Duke, Johnson mentioned Gonzaga, UCLA, and Arkansas as the schools recruiting him the hardest right now. He’s still building his relationship with Coach Turner at UK — the two have been talking about the program’s culture, how the team plays, sending players to the NBA, and the always rabid fanbase.
“Just their culture, how they send guys to the league,” Johnson said of what’s learned about Kentucky so far. “I know they send guys to the league and they’re good at player development.”
According to the On3 Consensus, Johnson is considered the No. 2 overall prospect from the ’24 class and is one of seven rising juniors that have announced offers from the Wildcats.
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