Kentucky recruit Jasper Johnson started slow at Peach Jam. It didn’t stay that way.
Monday night was a rarity for Jasper Johnson, and for his Team Thad squad this season.
An outlier in what’s otherwise been a brilliant season on the Nike EYBL circuit, Johnson and Team Thad dropped their Peach Jam opener, 66-65, to Drive Nation in what was a closely contested game throughout.
Through the four previous stops during the Nike EYBL regular season, Memphis-based Team Thad had compiled a 14-3 record, with Johnson — a five-star combo guard and UK recruit in the class of 2025 who hails from Central Kentucky — being a key part of that success, to the tune of a 12.3 points-per-game average and 39.7% shooting on three-pointers.
As Team Thad struggled Monday night, so did Johnson: The slender, 6-foot-4, 170-pound rising junior posted one of his worst stat lines of the Nike EYBL season, with 1-for-10 shooting from the field, three points and four rebounds in 19 minutes of action.
He hardly played in the second half, and wasn’t on the floor in crunch time as Team Thad and Drive Nation played intense possessions in front of a packed gym at the Riverview Park Activities Center.
But in the minutes immediately following that defeat, the sentiment surrounding Johnson — who earned a hometown scholarship offer from Kentucky in May — wasn’t concern.
It was confidence.
“He’ll be good. This was his worst game of the year,” Team Thad director and coach Norton Hurd IV told the Herald-Leader on Monday night. “He’s going to kill it tomorrow.”
Johnson has been a star while playing up an age level
Hurd’s prognostication proved correct.
While Team Thad was unable to bounce back with a win — losing a late lead and falling 70-68 to a talented PSA Cardinals squad that features class of 2024 UK recruiting target Boogie Fland in the backcourt — Johnson himself returned to form.
After spending most of the first half on the bench and getting some medical attention on his right foot, Johnson came alive in the second half: 11 points, four rebounds, two assists and a steal, in addition to countless moments when he facilitated open-court offense for Team Thad.
This is the Jasper Johnson most people, Hurd included, have become familiar with.
This is the Johnson who not only piloted Woodford County High School in Versailles to the Boys’ Sweet 16 state basketball tournament for the first time since 1986, but went on to lead the Yellow Jackets all the way to the state semifinals.
This is the Johnson who impressed so much between his time at Woodford County and while playing up an age level with Team Thad on the EYBL circuit that he will now play prep basketball at Link Academy, a powerhouse based out of Missouri that won the 2023 GEICO Nationals championship in April.
Simply put, it was the kind of individual bounce-back performance — filled with change-of-pace scoring moments and impressive plays created and made with his left hand — that led Hurd to tell the Herald-Leader he believes Johnson is the best point guard in the 2025 class.
(Johnson is listed as a combo guard by 247Sports and On3, and as a point guard by ESPN and Rivals).
“Jasper’s been great this year. ... He has grown as the year went on, on offense and defense,” Hurd said Monday. “(He’s) a playmaker that can really shoot the ball. So he’s been good.”
Hurd — who created the Team Thad grassroots basketball program in 2012 along with his former high school basketball teammate and longtime NBA player Thaddeus Young — views Johnson’s ascent this year as a natural end result.
A solid relationship between the people associated with Team Thad and the Johnson family is what allowed Johnson to first enter the program.
After Johnson impressed on Team Thad’s ninth grade squad, Hurd thought it was only fair to keep him moving up the ranks.
“We wanted to reward him and give him a chance,” Hurd said.
That opportunity has allowed Team Thad to thrive in a standout way, putting together its best season on the Nike EYBL circuit since switching over from the Under Armour circuit a few years ago.
It also helps that Johnson isn’t the only top recruit on Team Thad’s Nike EYBL squad this year.
He’s joined by the likes of Lebaron Philon, a top-30 guard in the 2024 class who has also announced a move to Link Academy, and Derrion Reid, a top-25 power forward in the 2024 class.
Five-star class of 2025 center Jayden Quaintance, who picked up a UK scholarship offer last month and averaged a double-double last week at the NBPA Top 100 Camp in Orlando, Fla., played in the Nike EYBL regular season with Team Thad before recently shifting to Team Loaded on the Adidas 3SSB circuit.
So while Johnson — who boasts a lengthy list of high-major scholarship offers, including Kentucky, Louisville and Memphis — certainly hasn’t done it alone for Team Thad, he’s made his mark on a successful team ahead of schedule.
This story was originally published July 5, 2023 at 7:58 AM.
