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| Josiah Johnson's iconic shot will be long remembered, but so will his career and the entire run UMHB men's basketball has been on in recent years. Photo by Russell Marwitz, True to the Cru |
By Riley Zayas
Special to D3sports.com
BELTON, Texas – In years to come, UMHB head coach Clif Carroll says, the stillshot will be plastered on the wall outside of the Mary Hardin-Baylor men’s basketball team’s locker room. There is a good reason for it.
The photo is simple, yet possesses great contextual meaning. Josiah Johnson’s eyes are transfixed on the rim, his feet are well off the ground. He’s just released what will, in quite literally the blink of an eye, likely become the most iconic shot of UMHB’s season. At least thus far. Carroll, a few feet away, is staring up at it.
But he knew the ball was going in the whole time.
“When he picked up his dribble and gathered for the shot,” Carroll said days later, “I audibly said, ‘That’s good.’ There was no doubt in my mind.”
Johnson’s last-second 3-pointer at the buzzer sent UMHB to the Sweet 16 for the second straight year on Saturday night, in a 72-70 win over East Texas Baptist. Then pandemonium broke out as a deafening roar came from the crowd of 1,143, coupled with the jubilation from the Crusaders on the court and the celebration with the student section in the minutes that followed.
“I was going to go for two points but I lost the ball,” Johnson told reporters postgame. “Once I lost it, I had to go for the 3. It was a great look for me.”
He had connected on clutch shots like this before. A 25-footer to beat LeTourneau a season ago sticks out, as does a key 3-pointer with under 10 seconds left in last year’s Sweet 16 duel at Case Western Reserve. Even the baseline jumper he connected on in the upset of D-I Texas State earlier this season, with 40 seconds left in a tied game, is memorable.
But this one felt different. Perhaps it was the fact that this one took place at home, while the previous three mentioned came on the road. Maybe it was the fact that the game was against a conference rival in ETBU. Maybe it was the fact that as the two teams huddled up with 11.0 seconds to go on Saturday night, the fact that one team’s season would end tonight.
“This is a special team to root for,” Carroll said. “Everybody sitting in the stands the other night knew we were going to win that game. There was a lot of faith in that gym.”
That game-winner provides a fitting parallel to Johnson himself. It is his 3-pointer that will be remembered for years to come, the kind of play that people will be talking about in Belton long after Johnson’s college career is over. But in the same game, he scored 32 points, a career postseason high for the senior guard who has been a crucial part of all five NCAA Tournament games in Carroll’s tenure at UMHB. Plus, he held his own on the defensive end, with six steals.
Spend some time around the UMHB program, and a similar takeaway is found. By and large, Johnson is known for his pure shooting ability. He gets to the free throw line at a high rate, is consistent from 3-point range, and clearly performs well in tight spots. On Jan. 19, he became the program’s all-time leading scorer, and now has 1,923 points in three seasons.
But the scoring is not the extent of Johnson’s role for the Sweet 16-bound Crusaders.
On his recruiting visit to UMHB three years ago, he asked Carroll what he needed to do if he came to Belton. “Just get buckets,” was Carroll’s response, though he wanted to see him develop as an all-around player too.
“When he first got here, it was all about getting buckets,” Carroll recalls. “He and I would butt heads defensively. But he has really taken that coaching defensively, and become a well-rounded player. His assist numbers are up. He’s always been a guy who could get steals, but now he is a guy who takes things away and guards his man.”
Currently ranked fourth in D-III in steals, with 2.96 per game, and sixth in that category in all three divisions of the NCAA, Johnson has indeed stepped up defensively. So much so that the coaching staff had its worries when he entered Friday’s first-round matchup with a wrist injury.
“I didn’t know if I would ever say this when he got here, but we were a little bit worried about what we would lose with him defensively,” Carroll said. “He’s really evolved as a player since he’s been here.”
Johnson agrees, having been pushed by not only Carroll, but his teammates as well. He has never gotten complacent in his success.
“[Coach Carroll] challenges me a lot in front of the whole team,” Johnson said with a laugh. “My teammates challenge me too, and that’s what I appreciate about them.”
Of those teammates, one in particular has had a profound impact on Johnson’s rise at UMHB: Kyle Wright. The duo, both hailing from northeast Texas, arrived in Belton at the same time in the fall of 2020, having been roommates ever since.
They contrast in some ways in terms of personality; Johnson is fairly reserved, a trait he says he inherited from his father, while Wright is one of the team’s more vocal contributors. But they feed off of each other because of that, and complement each other in UMHB’s backcourt.
“He’s one of my best friends,” Johnson said of Wright, who stepped up with 17 points in Friday’s first-round win. “He works extremely hard, and pushes me to be an ever better version of myself. He’s vocal, and plays his heart out. He’s probably the heart of our team, no question about it.”
“Kyle is not going to just let Jo be the leading scorer in the country,” Carroll added. “When you see a guy [in Wright], who has been told before that he’s not talented enough to play in college, and see him work his tail off every day, and that’s your roommate and best friend, you have no other choice but to work hard.”
Johnson understands that fact well. And the work put in has more than paid off; his three ASC Player of the Year awards, along with a pair of D3hoops.com All-America nods, have lent itself to status as a “household name” in D-III basketball circles. But it has not led to a change of character for the senior, who will likely be playing in front of more fans in Newport News on Friday than are in his entire hometown of Big Sandy, Texas (pop. 1,123).
“There’s not many times that you see players like Josiah,” Carroll said. “There’s a lot of guys with the same kind of talent, who can take over games and score a lot of points. But you don’t see too many who are really sold-out to the team, like Josiah.”
Johnson has never really thought of approaching it any other way, though.
“My belief in God is one of my foundations,” he said, when asked about the humility and team-first attitude Carroll mentioned. “My parents instilled that into me. Nobody wants a guy who is always talking about themselves.”
The evidence for his selflessness is there. On Saturday night, with 11.0 seconds left, his teammates knew who they trusted to take the final shot.
“These guys believe in him,” Carroll said. “We’re in that huddle two nights ago, and trying to figure out who to go for the last shot. I could have gone to three different guys. But when you sit down in that huddle, everybody looks at Jo.”
He and Wright each have another year of eligibility, which they intend to use next season. This tournament is not his final hurrah at the college level. But the focus is on the present, and as he looks to the past, he notes his improvement, not as a shooter, or even as a defender, but as a leader for a team he has fully bought into.
“When you learn to be a leader, it makes you a man,” Johnson told D3hoops.com. “It has taught me things that, after what will hopefully be a long basketball career, I can use even off the court, as characteristics of how I act on a daily basis. You have to learn to be nice and kind to others. It’ll get you far, even if it’s just smiling at somebody.”
Riley Zayas is co-founder of the website True to the Cru, which covers Mary Hardin-Baylor athletics.