One of the key players that head coach Lamont Paris brought to Columbia for his first season at South Carolina was a guard Meechie Johnson, who played two seasons at Ohio State before entering the NCAA transfer portal. He sat behind older guys after enrolling early with the Buckeyes and seeing limited action in his first full season.
With the Gamecocks, he earned a starting and leading role on the team, finishing second in points per game (12.7) and leading the team in assists per game (3.6), which was also eighth in the SEC.
Johnson went through the NBA draft process and returned to Columbia as a top player.
What have you done to improve yourself this summer as an individual?
“My body. I’ve spent a lot of time on my body because I understand that there are things that I’ve learned from playing at the Combine and going through the draft process, how important it is to being a guard who can cover the whole court and play defense on both ends.. I really dedicated this summer to my body, my fitness and being able to play on both ends of the court.
“I ate the right way and really trained like never before. Train, condition, do more, and just push and tense your body, not to the point of injury, but putting extra strain on your muscles so you can get used to doing certain things. Being able to cover all the ground, it takes a lot of time, and I do it a lot more. Things like that to continue to improve my physical condition.
What have you seen of Myles Stute?
“He’s a dedicated worker, he works very hard. He’s obviously an excellent shooter. I think he’s going to continue to show that he’s one of the best shooters in this conference with range and an ability to make tough shots any way he can. He will help us a lot this summer.
What gives you confidence that your team is much better than the pollsters think?
“Maturity, experience. A lot of guys played a lot of college basketball and competed in this conference. Guys like Myles have experience playing places, dealing with adversity, rebounding and dealing with it the right way. I think it’s very important when you’re trying to do something, like playing until March.
What was it like being such a high-ranking rookie and having it take you a while to succeed?
“Now you look back and it all helped a lot. You find yourself in a situation like at Ohio State as a kid on an older team, I was able to go to the tournament twice and experience those situations. Now I’m at South Carolina and I also get to play with older guys who have been in these situations and younger guys who are about to experience things. You are able to combine, build relationships with other people, which helps your team a lot. I’ve really tried to take a leadership role to give wisdom and knowledge to the guys behind me.
