Kentucky native Jasper Johnson commits to UK basketball. What are the Wildcats getting?

cameron drummond

Thu, Sep 5, 2024, 3:01 p.m.·9 min read

Kentucky men’s basketball coach Mark Pope is making sure the commonwealth’s best young talent stays home for college.

After already getting class of 2024 standouts Travis Perry (Lyon County) and Trent Noah (Harlan County) on his first UK roster for the 2024-25 season, Pope has now added two star players from the commonwealth in the 2025 recruiting class.

First came Malachi Moreno, the four-star center from Georgetown’s Great Crossing High School who committed to UK in August. In the process, Moreno became Pope’s first 2025 commit.

Now, Pope has supplemented that addition with another recruiting haymaker: On Thursday afternoon, five-star class of 2025 guard Jasper Johnson committed to the Wildcats.

A former star player at Woodford County, Johnson is the son of Dennis Johnson, the former Harrodsburg, UK and NFL football player who serves as the head football coach and athletics director at the Versailles school.

The younger Johnson spent his junior season playing high school basketball at Link Academy in Missouri and will spend his final pre-college season at the Atlanta-based Overtime Elite program, which counts ex-Cat Rob Dillingham among its alums.

But while Johnson no longer plays prep basketball in Kentucky, he’s still one of the most-talented high school players the state has produced in recent memory. Underscoring this sentiment, Johnson’s commitment to UK on Thursday came during an event held at Woodford County High School.

“That is the perfect case scenario for Mark Pope,” said David Sisk, a basketball analyst for Rivals who covers both Kentucky and North Carolina.

The commitment event was also live streamed on the 247Sports YouTube channel.

By adding both Moreno and Johnson in a short span of time — and before UK hosts the majority of its other 2025 recruits for fall official visits — Kentucky and Pope have made a big recruiting statement.

“I think it gives them a ton of momentum going into this, and now you can match it around,” Sisk said. “Not only, how do you match up with a big man, but maybe your point guard. When you look at it, you’ve got momentum. And now you’re saying, ‘Hey, we should have guys wanting to play with them.’”

Jasper Johnson is a Central Kentucky native who has visited and played at Rupp Arena on several occasions. Johnson’s father, Dennis, is a Kentucky football legend.

Pope’s newfound recruiting momentum comes after a summer in which the UK fan base waited eagerly to see what high school recruiting would look like under the former BYU and Utah Valley head coach, who won a national championship as a player at UK in 1996.

In securing Johnson — a 6-foot-4, 175-pound guard who is ranked as the No. 10 overall recruit in the 2025 class by the 247Sports Composite — Pope has now landed his highest-ranked recruit ever.

Previously, that title belonged to Collin Chandler, a four-star guard who was ranked as the No. 37 overall prospect in the 2022 recruiting class and committed to Pope at BYU. Chandler delayed his college basketball career by two years in order to take a mission trip, and he’s now one of three freshmen on Pope’s first UK basketball roster.

But the hype is different around Johnson, not only because of his skill as a lethal distance shooter but also because UK had to stage a recruiting rally to pry him away from both Alabama and North Carolina. Arkansas and Louisville were also on Johnson’s final shortlist of five schools.

“Just watching him warm up, you can see the unique attention to detail he puts into his shooting versatility and it pays off in dividends,” Zach Welch, an analyst for Pro Insight Basketball, told the Herald-Leader. “Outside of the shooting, he combines his vision and athleticism well in transition, has shown progress in creating for himself and others in diverse ways in the halfcourt and is a good presence off the court too.”

Following his commitment to UK on Thursday, Johnson spoke about how he was quickly able to build a relationship with Pope and his new Kentucky coaching staff.

“He took a lot of time (to recruit me), and one thing you can’t give back is time,” Johnson said. “I know he had a short period of it, but I feel like he made me a priority with as much time as he was given. Coming to see me, calling me, texting me, not just him but the whole coaching staff. It really built that relationship really quick. I’m ready to be able to play for them.”

Jasper Johnson committed to Kentucky basketball on Thursday afternoon during a ceremony held at Woodford County High School in Versailles. Johnson is a former Woodford County player who led the Yellow Jackets to the semifinals of the 2023 Sweet 16 state tournament.

Jasper Johnson’s commitment to Kentucky looms large in importance

Johnson’s commitment to Kentucky is consequential for numerous reasons.

Let’s start with the slow pace at which players in the 2025 recruiting class are coming off the board.

According to the 247Sports Composite rankings, only five players in the top 30 have committed. Kentucky now has two of them with Johnson (No. 10) and Moreno (No. 27).

This has vaulted Kentucky into the early lead in the team recruiting rankings for the 2025 class.

As mentioned previously, UK is set to host a bevy of top 2025 recruits for official visits this fall. This list includes power forwards Caleb Wilson and Tounde Yessoufou.

Shooting guard Braylon Mullins, an AAU teammate of Moreno, will also be coming to UK’s campus.

Sisk, the Rivals basketball analyst, said these top prospects will now arrive in Lexington and see Pope’s plan falling into place.

“So what you end up with now, and I think this is more important than anything … they’re going to look at it and they’re going to say, ‘OK, there’s momentum. Guys want to be here,’” Sisk said.

And this movement began before Johnson even committed.

Sisk said that in his interviews with prospects and their coaches, a common discussion point has been how players feel they will fit alongside other UK recruits.

An example of this came from both Yessoufou and five-star center Chris Cenac, who both played against Moreno at this summer’s NBPA Top 100 Camp.

“Now, all of a sudden (recruits) come in and you’re the hot program,” Sisk said.

Yessoufou has Kentucky among his final six college options, and he will be visiting UK in October for Big Blue Madness. Cenac has an official visit to UK scheduled for late September.

Specifically, the addition of Johnson gives Kentucky a versatile backcourt presence who has experience in a variety of different offensive settings.

While at Woodford County (which Johnson led to the Sweet 16 state tournament semifinals in 2023) and when playing on the grassroots circuit with Team Thad of the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League, Johnson had more of an on-ball presence.

“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,” Norton Hurd IV, a Team Thad co-founder and the team’s director and coach, said in July.

Hurd was one of several key figures from Johnson’s burgeoning basketball career who were in attendance for Thursday’s commitment.

Jasper Johnson joins Malachi Moreno as part of UK basketball’s 2025 recruiting class. Both players are Kentucky natives.

Last season at Link Academy, Johnson played more of an off-ball role while surrounded by five-star talent at virtually every position.

“Through experience, learning how to play with really good guards, I think that’s going to be huge for him moving forward, both offensively and defensively,” Bill Armstrong — who coached Johnson at Link Academy last season before leaving to become an assistant coach at Baylor — told the Herald-Leader earlier this year.

“Then defensively, just continue to be a great on-ball defender, learning how to play off the ball, being more physical. I think he’s taking a step in the right direction in every single facet of the game. I think that’s what he’s going to do (with) his length and his size and his athletic ability. He continues to work on his versatility.”

Welch, the Pro Insight Basketball analyst, stressed that this versatility is an asset to Johnson’s recruiting profile.

“Due to his ability to operate in a variety of roles, it will be interesting to see whether his college team looks to tap more into harnessing his off-ball shooting, or leaning into his creation ability more,” Welch said. “Either way, a run-and-gun style of offense would suit him well.”

There’s good news on that front. Under Pope, Kentucky basketball projects to be a run-and-gun team. Pope’s final BYU team last season averaged 81.4 points per game and attempted the second-most 3-pointers per game of any team in the nation.

“I know at the next level I’m not going to have the ball in my hands every possession. Coach tells me it’s in my hands, or in any player’s hands, for probably no more than five minutes a game,” Johnson told the Herald-Leader in January. “So just being off the ball I know at the next level, college, NBA, I’m going to have to be off the ball and create that way as well.”

On Thursday, Johnson also played up the ‘Hometown Hero’ element of his college decision.

“I’ll be bringing a lot to this Kentucky program,” Johnson said. “The main goal is hopefully to hang a banner. That’s what I really want to do. But, just pure excitement. Bluegrass kid being able to play for his hometown. That’s a great feeling.”

Now, Pope and Kentucky basketball can pursue other class of 2025 recruits with two major building blocks already in place: Johnson, a multi-faceted backcourt player, and Moreno, a traditional big man with room to expand his game.

“That’s definitely a plus,” Johnson said Thursday about committing to the Wildcats with Moreno already in the fold. “I know how good he is, how much of a force he is down low.”

“They had to work for both of these (commitments), so I think it’s best case scenario for (Pope),” Sisk added. “… It’s hard to come in, right there, just be involved for a few months. Because he wasn’t after these players when he was at BYU.”