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Aug 04, 2023

Indiana Hoosiers basketball: Xavier Johnson will serve as big brother

BORDEN – After the stress and frustration of a winter sat on the sideline, and a

BORDEN – After the stress and frustration of a winter sat on the sideline, and a spring spent waiting on a decision, Mike Woodson decided to deliver news of Xavier Johnson's granted waiver with a touch of humor.

Approval in hand, Woodson called his soon-to-be sixth-year point guard — to that moment unaware of the NCAA's decision — with a question.

"He asked me," Johnson said, smiling, "if I wanted to transfer."

That was how a six-month ordeal, beginning with Johnson's broken foot at Kansas, through his lengthy rehabilitation, to the decision to shut him down and seek a waiver for the coming season, ended.

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More:Inside the visit that convinced Mackenzie Mgbako to become a Hoosier

Now, Johnson turns his attention to what he knows will ultimately, finally, surely be the last season of his college career.

It will be unlike any he's prepared for before.

Johnson still carries the responsibility of point guard for a program whose coach is not shy about great expectations. But now, he does so in many ways by himself. The veteran group he joined two years ago and leaned on last season as part of an experienced top of a talented roster is gone.

Behind it marches in a new wave of players either grown from last season, plucked from the transfer portal or signed in a recruiting class that got a serious late addition three weeks ago, when top-10 forward Mackenzie Mgbako spurned Kansas to sign with IU.

Johnson didn't get right of first refusal on players Indiana recruited this spring. But when Woodson asked for his point guard's opinion, Johnson was happy to share it, not just to collaborate but because Johnson liked what he saw.

"We'll be more athletic than last year," Johnson said. "It's hard to compete with Trayce (Jackson-Davis)'s athletic ability, but I think (Oregon transfer) Kel’el (Ware) is up there. He's 7-foot and he can actually jump out of the gym as well, and he can spread the floor out and shoot. Mgbako, he can shoot, he can score at all three levels. I mean, I can go down a list. I’m not gonna name all of 'em, but I think we have some pretty solid pieces coming in."

Woodson happily admitted Wednesday, during a media session at IU's annual swing through Huber's Orchard and Winery for a fundraising dinner, next year's roster — athletically and positionally — resembles more closely some of the best he coached in the NBA.

But none of it knits together without Johnson, as deft a passer and prolific a creator as Indiana has seen at least since Yogi Ferrell graduated.

Johnson's 172 assists in the 2021-22 season marked one of the five best single campaigns in terms of output in program history. He finished that season with a top-five assist rate in Big Ten play and a top-15 assist rate nationally, and he was on pace for similar results (albeit in a limited pre-injury sample size) last season.

He knows he’ll need to grow his scoring impact this season, in addition to his facilitating work, with the rest of last season's top offensive threats moved on.

And not just as its point guard but as Indiana's most-experienced player, on a team sorely lacking it compared to the outfit Johnson steered a year ago, he will have to lead. A big brother, as he described it Wednesday.

Johnson's aggressive recruiting was a crucial piece of selling Indiana to the players now bound for campus to become his teammates. They’ll need him to flatten their collective learning curve, and help them settle into college. And then they’ll need him to pull them together into an outfit competitive enough to fight with the Big Ten's best.

"We built a solid, solid team," Johnson said.

In many ways, one only as solid as he makes them.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.