LOS ANGELES — When the UCLA men’s basketball team faces USC in the Galen Center on Monday at 7 p.m., it’ll mark Kobe Johnson’s first matchup with his former team since he transferred across town this past offseason. Anybody who knows Johnson well isn’t surprised that he circled January 27, 2025, on his calendar the moment the Bruins’ schedule dropped.
“For sure he did that,” Al Hanson, Johnson’s coach at Glendale (Wis.) Nicolet High School told the Southern California News Group. “Kobe is very unique with his competitive spirit.”
When Johnson left after three seasons at USC for UCLA, he was hungry to grow his game and shove that evolution in the Trojans’ face.
Yet, 20 games into his senior year, he’s still very much the same player that he was when he donned the cardinal and gold. He’s averaging 8 points per game (2.9 fewer than last season). He’s shooting 35.6% from 3-point range and 44.5% from the field, both slight upticks from last season, but on a lower volume of 6.0 field goal attempts (4.1 fewer than last season).
The downtrend in shot attempts can be credited to playing on a better team — USC went 15-18 last season before hiring a new head coach in Eric Mussleman, who replenished the roster with 11 transfers. The Trojans come into Monday’s first Big Ten Conference meeting with the Bruins at 4-4 in conference, 12-7 overall.
Johnson’s still certainly contributing to UCLA’s 14-6 start (4-4 in the Big Ten), leading the team in six categories, including rebounding (5.9), assists (3.1), and steals (1.9) in a team-high 28.9 minutes per game. But the individual growth he hoped for, hasn’t come along.
“There’s definitely more room for improvement,” Johnson said on Dec. 11. “I definitely got to work on, you know, being able to get a bucket at the end of the shot clock.”
During UCLA’s matchup with USC last season, Bruins head coach Mick Cronin distinctly remembers sharing a look with Johnson after he called out one of the Bruins plays before they ran it, before disrupting their set.
Cronin wanted the Bruins to acquire Johnson to be their “senior leader.”
“You draw it up on paper,” Cronin said about Johnson at Big Ten media day. “OK, I need a winner. I need a guy that thinks like I do, that’s about the same stuff I’m about, and is a fierce competitor.”
Johnson fit Cronin’s vision and UCLA checked Johnson’s boxes. He loved Los Angeles. Going to UCLA, meant a minor change in living situation and that he could train in Los Angeles with his brother Jalen, a forward on the Atlanta Hawks, this past offseason. He also felt Cronin could push him to be the best possible version of himself as a player.
Cronin said then that he expected Johnson to be an all-conference defender just like he was the last two seasons in the Pac-12.
Johnson is that level of a defender because of his length and effort, but his natural instincts on that side of the ball have always stood out.
“He was the one guy who I didn’t get on too much about breaking off from defensive schemes,” Hanson said. “You gotta let him gamble.”
Cronin gives Johnson the freedom to do that, but those gambles often lead to unnecessary fouls. He fouled out in UCLA’s game at Nebraska on Jan. 4 and last Tuesday against Wisconsin. He’s too valuable to the Bruins’ success to let his overzealousness take him out of games.
“He leads us in assists in practice every day,” Cronin said on Oct. 15.
And that has carried into the season.
“He’s 1 or 2 in every shooting drill,” Cronin said on Dec. 27.
That’s the part that hasn’t translated to game action as his 3-point shooting percentage (35.6) ranks fourth on the team. He also seems uncertain, at times, when reading a pick-and-roll action or attacking a 1-on-1 coverage.
Even if the shot creation doesn’t reach its peak, he can continue to lift the Bruins by fulfilling Cronin’s vision for him as their leader.
“At some point, you gotta have some players that say ‘enough is enough,” Cronin said. “I’d like Kobe Johnson to do it more.”