Kenny Johnson named to Louisville basketball staff
In the days after Kevin Keatts accepted the offer to become the head basketball coach at North Carolina Wilmington, University of Louisville coach Rick Pitino called an old friend and former assistant.
Ralph Willard, now a scout for the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder, was Pitino's first choice to replace Keatts as the lead assistant on Pitino's staff. Willard said he'd love to, but he liked his current job.
"He said, 'You need to get yourself a great recruiter,' " Pitino explained.
How Pitino ended up hiring Indiana University recruiting coordinator and assistant coach Kenny Johnson is a different story.
Pitino introduced Johnson as his newest assistant Wednesday in a move that adds instant recruiting firepower in the fertile basketball territory in and around Washington, D.C., and up the East Coast.
Once Willard passed on the job, Pitino asked his son, Richard, the head coach at Minnesota, to find "the best rising assistant coach in the business." Rick wanted three options; Richard came back with one.
"I wanted somebody who the players could look up to," Pitino said. "We are a very close unit. I felt (Johnson) could be somebody who would be a great mentor for our guys. … He's someone who exactly fits our needs."
Johnson called the decision to leave IU "one of the hardest things I've done in my life," but the chance to coach under Pitino was too good a learning opportunity, he said.
"There's so much to sell (at U of L)," he said. "I didn't like recruiting against Louisville. I hated seeing their name on a kid's list or coming out of a kid's mouth, so working with those guys will be a great experience for me."
He spent the past two seasons on Tom Crean's staff, helping the Hoosiers land heralded prospects Noah Vonleh, Troy Williams and James Blackmon Jr. and earn a No. 1 seed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. He was rated the 11th most respected and feared recruiter in college basketball in an ESPN survey of coaches last summer.
"It's a great hire," Scout.com recruiting analyst Evan Daniels said. "He's a really bright guy. I think he's one of the best up-and-coming assistant coaches in the country."
Maryland also tried to pry Johnson from Indiana. He studied cell, molecular biology and genetics at Maryland, graduating in 1999.
"You put your love aside," he said when asked why he picked Louisville over his alma mater. "It's where I met my wife. … It's definitely not an easy decision to make."
He was the under-16 coach, assistant director and head of travel and logistics for six years for TeamTakeover, a prominent AAU program in the D.C. area, developing 53 Division I players in the process.
Johnson enhanced his D.C. ties over the past decade, working at three area high schools. He was the associate head coach for four years at Paul IV High in Fairfax, Va., a program with four of the top five 2015 class prospects in Virginia.
He also spent a year as an assistant coach at Towson University, a small Division I program near Baltimore.
His arrival at U of L comes at a critical point in the basketball recruiting cycle. This coming weekend is the only in-person game evaluation time coaches will have until July, when the AAU circuit moves into full swing.
U of L is in the market for three 2015 signees, Pitino said, and Johnson has the chance to make an immediate impact. He hadn't even signed his contract as of Wednesday afternoon, but he'll wear a new Louisville polo shirt this weekend, just as he did at the introductory news conference.
Pitino also announced the hiring of former Cardinals player David Padgett as an assistant video coordinator. Padgett spent the 2010-11 season as an assistant at IUPUI.
Reach Louisville writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_CJ).