It wasn’t a request, but rather a demand for Jasper Johnson as he prepares for his time at Kentucky, following in his father’s footsteps as a Wildcat. Dennis Johnson was an All-SEC performer on the gridiron, and now, Mark Pope expects his son to find similar success on the hardwood.
“I think Jasper Johnson is a superstar. I expect him to come in here and be great,” Pope said earlier this month. “… I expect him to be, like he needs to come here and be great, and that’s what he wants to do. That’s what we want from him.”
For some, that weight on their shoulders would be quite heavy — especially for a legacy kid from Lexington. Is it fair to put that much on a freshman who hasn’t taken a single shot as a college basketball player yet?
That’s not how Johnson sees it. In fact, his vision aligns identically with Pope’s, the top-25 recruit expecting similar production as he begins his career in blue and white. They’ve been talking about it since the Kentucky head coach first got the job and started recruiting him to stay home.
It’s part of the reason he signed with the Wildcats.
“No, it didn’t surprise me at all (Pope called him a superstar),” Johnson said on this week’s edition of WLAP’s Sunday Morning Sports Talk. “I mean, Coach Pope, he’s been telling me that he sees that in my game since day one of me meeting him. He’s been to a couple of my games — well, a lot of my games, really — and just watching film on me, making sure we build that bond and that connection that we have.”
It won’t be handed to him, obviously, but he’s confident Pope will put him in position to succeed — and his work ethic will help him get there. When you combine system fit and drive, why not believe you can become a superstar at Kentucky?
“Coach Pope saying that, it means a lot that my coach can believe in me and allow me to be able to be ready for that position and that role,” Johnson continued. “I know it’s a lot of work that’s going to have to be put into that before the games start happening, but I feel like I’m confident in myself and I feel like I can do anything that my coach will always want me to do, as well.
“I feel like I can do that at high level.”
The individual success goes hand-in-hand with team success — remember, Pope believes you must understand what it means to play at Kentucky to succeed at Kentucky, and that starts with the banner-hanging assignment. It’s at the top of the checklist when recruiting new players and the final thing to address before putting pen to paper.
“There’s nowhere like this, and if you come in here not understanding or appreciating that, I actually think your chances of success are not very high, to some level,” Pope said. “The guys that are really successful here come in with a healthy respect for what this is — because it requires more, actually.”
Johnson — as you’d expect from someone from Lexington and growing up around UK Athletics — understands it as well as anyone. KY Till I Die is his motto, after all. What does he think about the group Pope assembled as they begin their championship push together? It’s one that can get there, as deep and talented as any in college basketball, if you ask for his opinion.
The rotation and roles will sort themselves out over the course of the next several months and into the season. For now, though, it’s a team you’d put against any — and the coach has proven he’s more than capable leading it.
“We have a lot of great talent on our team and on our roster,” Johnson said. “I know Coach Pope has a plan for each and every guy. Just having to go in there and finding your role, everybody has to adjust to playing with elite talent. I feel like we have one of the best rosters in the country, one through 13 or one through 14, you know?
“I know Coach Pope will coach us really good in practice each and every day, find the lineups that work best with each other and go from there.”
The good news? The wait is almost over — at least when it comes to summer workouts. We’re still five months away from live game action, but Johnson says he’ll be arriving on campus on June 5 with the first practice scheduled for June 6.
He’s not waiting until then to get himself prepared, though.
“I’m in the gym every day just trying to get better, get stronger, get faster, work on my shooting, my foot speed, whatever I can to separate myself from when I was in high school to that first day of college,” he said.
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