“We had Kevin Durant here — and I’m not saying he’s Kevin Durant — but he has a lot of Kevin Durant tendencies in him. Don’t wait until half a year goes by and then figure out you’re only going to see him for one year. Get out and see him right now.”
AUSTIN, Texas — On Tuesday, Texas Longhorns freshman phenom guard Tre Johnson led head coach Rodney Terry’s team in scoring for a third straight game to start his career in burnt orange and white, scoring 19 points in a largely efficient performance as the Longhorns cruised to a 105-58 win over the Chicago State Cougars at the Moody Center.
It was the second of 18 home games that Johnson will play in Austin before he becomes a top pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. With the third game coming Saturday afternoon after the No. 3-ranked Texas Longhorns play the Arkansas Razorbacks in Fayetteville, it’s not great timing for football fans to make it out to the Mood.
But the non-conference will go by quickly and it would be a mistake for any Texas fans who enjoy basketball to miss the opportunity to see one of the most transcendent talents in program history.
So after the game, I asked Terry to provide a public-service announcement about Johnson to the Longhorn faithful.
“Tre Johnson — get out to see him right now. We knew when we signed him that Tre Johnson is one of those kids that has a chance to be as good as he wants to be. The ceiling is really high for him. I’ve recruited the state a long time and there haven’t been a lot of scorers like you like him come out of this state, especially the last 15 years. Scoring is easy for him, I’ve seen him do it against elite-level talent. Cason Wallace is in the NBA playing for Oklahoma City Thunder right now and Tre gave those guys 40 on a regular night. So, you This kid’s a special kid.
Don’t wait until conference. Come out and see him. See him right now in non-conference. We had Kevin Durant here — and I’m not saying he’s Kevin Durant — but he has a lot of Kevin Durant tendencies in him. Don’t wait until half a year goes by and then figure out you’re only going to see him for one year. Get out and see him right now.
He has a chance to be really special, but he’s a guy that works hard on his on his game. He’s endeared themselves to his teammates with his work ethic. He’s in the gym at 6 a.m. in the morning, every day, religiously shooting, working on his ball-handling, working on his game.
He’s a competitor. He wants to win. He’s not caught up in trying to worry about scoring — scoring comes easy to him. But he’s working on his defense. He’s working on trying to be a complete player, playing on both ends of the floor, making decisions with the ball.
But again, special player. Come out and see him. Don’t miss the whole season of seeing him play,” Terry said.
For what it’s worth, this is my 23rd season following Texas basketball as a student and then a writer and Durant is the only player who really compares to Johnson as a pure scorer and from an upside perspective. With all due respect to TJ Ford, a big-time college player, the scoring ability of DJ Augustin, and the combination of touch and upside that LaMarcus Aldridge possessed, my list of must-watch basketball players over that time is KD and Tre because the best teams under Rick Barnes — the Final Four team with Ford and the Elite Eight teams, first in 2006 with Aldridge, Daniel Gibson, and PJ Tucker, and then in 2008 with Augustin, Damion James, and AJ Abrams — were fun teams to watch.
Terry’s group this year has some real upside if they can put it all together, but it’s telling that the Texas staff intentionally built this group around Johnson, because he’s the one player who truly sets the ceiling for the Longhorns in 2024-25.
Watching Johnson shoot is a thing of beauty — he’s the type of player that you expect every good look to go in, and he gets a lot of good looks because he has a remarkable maturity in the way that he’s always hunting looks, but rarely forces himself on the game with six turnovers in three games.
One turnover on Tuesday stood out to me because he made a good play to get into the lane on a drive with a jump stop and should have shot the ball. Instead, he tried to throw a lob with his left hand and lost control of the ball, the single most egregiously bad decision he’s made through his first three games. It happens, especially for young players; the key is how they respond. Johnson responded by hustling up the court and causing a turnover by Chicago State when he contested a shot so well from behind in transition that the Cougars player tried to make a wild, last-second pass and threw the ball out of bounds.
First-year Chicago State head coach Scott Spinelli, who has high-major experience as an assistant at Boston College, Maryland, Nebraska, and Texas A&M, was effusive in his praise for Johnson.
“The one thing about him that I was really impressed with — obviously, he’s a great shotmaker — I think he plays within the flow of the game. A lot of those shots that he gets are in rhythm. He just has a way of getting open and he looks to be a guy that, if you close out and make him put it on the floor, he can also do that and make his teammates better at the same time. I was very impressed with him, not only as a shotmaker, but as an overall player, and a guy that actually impacts winning, not just scoring,” Spinelli said.
Terry also provided valuable behind-the-scenes perspective on Johnson’s growth since his summer arrival.
“You take Tre Johnson the summer and you take him where he’s at right now, he’s a totally different guy in terms of the coaching piece and taking coaching. He’s grown so much in his maturity in that regard. Trey’s a great kid with a great personality, great smile, super competitor and he’s embraced, getting coached hard and being held accountable and also being a great teammate. So he’s being consistent with that every single day and I really like what he’s done to this point in that,” Terry said.
Other notes:
Terry on the assist mentality as Texas produced 21 assists on 36 made baskets (58.3 percent): “Our goal every game is to try to have 18 or more assisted every game, point five. Mentality, share the basketball. Be a willing passer. If you’re a willing passer, a willing screener, then you’re going to probably get a scoring opportunity, so sharing the basketball, moving the basketball, player movement, ball movement, we want those things. We should be a team that cuts extremely hard, 45 cut, burn cuts, and we want to drive, double-double side and sharing the basketball,” Terry said.
“But I thought we did a nice job of that tonight. Guys not trying to over dribble. We don’t need to dribble in the ball more than twice — move the basketball, have great spacing. We’re still early in our journey with that. We’ll continue to get better as the season goes.”
Terry on Arthur Kaluma the elite role player: “His role for us be a guy that plays with the great motor on both ends of the floor. He had four assists tonight, not settling, getting downhill, playing off of two feet in the paint, sliding and getting into areas of the court where he’s able to score the basketball for us, but be an elite rebounder for us and be a guy that could score for us as well. Thought he really played within himself and tried to do the things we’re asking him to do in terms of his role for us,” Terry said.
Kaluma scored 15 points on 5-of-8 shooting, hitting his only three and getting to the line to convert 4-of-6 attempts with eight rebounds, four assists, and zero turnovers. Terry likes to talk about his players starring in their role and the Creighton and Kansas State transfer has the experience, maturity, and skill set to star in a significant role for Texas this season.
Game reps against a pressure defense: When Spinelli took over from Gerald Gillion, who joined LIU as an assistant, he instituted an uptempo approach with pressure defense as its baseline. In part because Chicago State couldn’t get stops and in part because Texas attacked the press so well when it did have to take the ball out of the basket, the Cougars had to abandon it despite Spinelli trying to develop the team’s identity around it.
“We did a really good job handling the pressure — we got them out of the pressure. They were a pressure team for 80 minutes this year. They hadn’t backed off. They backed off a little bit tonight because we make good decisions and scored on our terms and attacked on our terms,” Terry said.