With college commitment looming, UK recruit Jasper Johnson looks to end AAU career on a high

The crowning moment of Jasper Johnson’s prep basketball career could come soon.

Rumors are swirling that a college commitment could be close for the talented class of 2025 prospect who began his high school career at Woodford County.

Johnson — the son of former Harrodsburg, University of Kentucky and NFL football player Dennis Johnson, who is now the head football coach and athletic director at Woodford County — has blossomed into one of the biggest basketball recruits to come out of Central Kentucky in some time.

A left-handed, 6-foot-4, 175-pound shooting guard, Johnson is ranked by the 247Sports Composite as the No. 10 overall player in the 2025 class and is fresh off winning a gold medal with the United States at this summer’s FIBA Under-18 AmeriCup in Argentina.

Before that rumored college commitment arrives, Johnson — who reportedly has Alabama, Kentucky and North Carolina at the top of his recruitment — must first put a bow on another important chapter of his basketball development.

This spring and summer marked Johnson’s final season of AAU hoops, and he spent it once again playing for Team Thad on the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) circuit.

This is the last week that Johnson will suit up for Team Thad. Peach Jam, the annual recruiting showcase and end-of-season Nike EYBL event, runs through Sunday at the Riverview Park Activities Center in North Augusta, South Carolina.

All season long, Johnson has played a starring role for Team Thad, a Memphis-based grassroots basketball program that was created in 2012 by Norton Hurd IV and 17-year NBA veteran Thaddeus Young.

“He’s been a great leader,” Hurd, Team Thad’s director and coach, told the Herald-Leader about Johnson. “He’s one of the top scorers in the EYBL … The way he can just handle the ball, how deep he can shoot. He’s easily, I mean to me, the most exciting guard in the country.”

Entering Peach Jam — which began last Friday and this year spans two recruiting periods for college coaches — Johnson has been central to Team Thad’s success, alongside other standout players like three-star shooting guard Courtland Muldrew (who recently earned an Arkansas offer), four-star combo guard Isaiah Sealy (who holds offers from Arkansas and Louisville, among others), three-star power forward Hayden Assemian (a South Carolina commit) and three-star shooting guard Armelo Boone (a former star at Lexington’s Frederick Douglass High School who recently committed to Western Kentucky).

Since the bright lights of Peach Jam turned on last weekend, it has been Johnson who’s led by example for Team Thad.

Across four games at the event (through Wednesday), Johnson is averaging 19.8 points per contest. This includes a trio of 20-plus point performances, as well as two games in which Johnson has made at least four 3-pointers.

“My mindset is coming (in) and doing anything it takes to win games,” Johnson said to a national audience via YouTube live stream after recording 16 points and nine assists during a Wednesday evening Peach Jam win. “I know Peach Jam is the biggest tournament, the final (EYBL) session, so coming in, whether that’s scoring, defending, getting my teammates involved. Just doing whatever it takes to get a win.”

Focus shifts to commitment for Jasper Johnson

Johnson isn’t the first name-brand player to come through the Team Thad program.

Last year alone, Team Thad boasted the likes of Labaron Philon (an incoming freshman guard at Alabama), Jayden Quaintance (a former Kentucky signee center and 2024 McDonald’s All-American who is now going to Arizona State) and Derrion Reid (an incoming freshman forward at Alabama).

Johnson shared the floor with those players last season in more of a supporting role. Now, he’s the biggest name on the Team Thad squad and the player with the largest on-court reputation to live up to.

But, thanks in part to Johnson’s 2023-24 high school season — which was spent playing with five-star talent, including Philon, at Missouri’s Link Academy — he’s become more proficient at finding different ways to affect the game.

“He understands we have to move him around a little more,” Hurd said about how Team Thad uses Johnson offensively with opponents game planning against him. “He shouldn’t be the one always dribbling (the ball) up because he wants to also get the eyes away from him to get the ball back and get himself easier ways to score.”

With Johnson’s AAU career only days away from concluding, the focus will shift to where the Central Kentucky native will be playing college basketball.

“He’s got a good family, he’s a good kid. He’s level headed,” Hurd said about how Johnson has kept focus despite the potential distraction of his high-major recruitment. “He’s down-to-earth and he’s just understanding, enjoying the process and letting it come his way.”

While Johnson’s recruitment remains a full-blown blue blood affair, reporting indicates Alabama, Kentucky and North Carolina are standing out from the pack.

Johnson has trekked to both Alabama and UK this summer, the latter of which came following Kentucky’s offseason coaching change from John Calipari to Mark Pope.

Johnson’s recruitment to UK began under Calipari, the ex-UK coach now at Arkansas.

Pope has continued this pursuit. He and his assistant coaches — namely Alvin Brooks III, Cody Fueger and Jason Hart — have watched Johnson play in the following settings in recent months: Nike EYBL sessions in Indiana and South Carolina, the USA Basketball Under-18 Men’s National Team training camp in Colorado, the FIBA Men’s Under-18 AmeriCup in Argentina and within the commonwealth at the KABC Titans Shootout in Shelbyville.

That’s a lot of legwork from Kentucky’s coaches to try and secure a commitment from Johnson, who powered Woodford County to an appearance in the Sweet 16 state semifinals in 2023.

“I’m just taking my recruitment slow,” Johnson said Wednesday, despite the outside noise indicating a commitment could be near. “I know I’m one of the best players in the country, so I’ve just got to go and show that every moment I can. I know there’s a lot of eyes on me, (but) I have no pressure really, but just staying locked in and just performing every time I can.”

UK is still yet to land a commitment with Pope as the head coach.

Pope’s first major recruit at Kentucky, Canadian star Will Riley, committed to Illinois earlier this summer from a shortlist of post-high school playing options that also included UK.

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