Colorado freshman Isaiah Johnson is your favorite NBA star’s favorite college hooper | College Basketball Insider
BOULDER — Dwyane Wade is his godfather. LeBron James calls him “nephew.” Chris Paul has been a family friend for as long as he can remember.
NBA locker rooms are flush with Isaiah Johnson fans. Tad Boyle’s standout freshman is your favorite NBA player’s favorite college basketball player.
“I’ve been keeping tabs on him,” Detroit Pistons forward and 15-year NBA veteran Tobias Harris told The Denver Gazette. “He’s having a hell of a year.”
While Colorado has lost six straight heading into Sunday’s home game against TCU (12 p.m. TNT), the Buffaloes have their next superstar point guard in Johnson. He’s the son of Chris Johnson, a former college basketball player at Texas A&M-Kingsville who has become one of the most well-known personal NBA trainers over the last 15 years, working with the likes of Wade, James, Paul, Harris, Aaron Gordon and Tyrese Maxey — just to name a few.
Chris Johnson’s gym in the Los Angeles area was the perfect environment to raise a budding hoops star. For most of his life, Isaiah has tagged along to workouts, watching the game’s biggest stars tirelessly work on their craft.
“My dad always brought me around,” Johnson told The Denver Gazette. “He always just put me in little situations, even when I was in elementary school, just to be out there and have good experiences.
“When I was growing up and I was little and first met (NBA stars), I definitely was (starstruck), but now being older, now being 18 (years old), it’s just kinda normal. I’m definitely just used to it at this point. They’re all regular people.”
Regular people with elite work ethics, though, and that’s what Johnson has maybe learned the most — and it’s the lasting impression he leaves on his coaches.
“He never was entitled. I think that’s very important to know,” David Grace, who coached Johnson at Campbell Hall High School in Los Angeles, told The Denver Gazette. “He never took things for granted. He would get up in the morning before school, work out, go to my practices right after school and then get back in the gym before his dad closed up at around 9 or 10 o’clock at night. And he was a great student. He was available, was always on time, never late. He was a coach’s joy.”
That’s a familiar scene you’ll find inside the CU Events Center, too. After the Buffs went through a full practice less than 24 hours before a game against Central Florida earlier this month, Johnson was still in the gym a few hours after Boyle’s practice ended, getting in extra work with his dad.
Johnson’s upbringing also came with stereotypes: But how does that player do in a team setting?
That sentiment went away quickly.
“Zero concerns with that guy,” CU associate head coach Mike Rohn told The Denver Gazette. “We knew his dad and his reputation speaks for itself. There was never one concern with Isaiah whatsoever in terms of his ability to be a good teammate and be a coachable guy.
“With his high school, he scored so much. He scored with his club team, as well, but his club team had better players. A kid that went to Duke, a kid at BYU, a kid at Nevada. There were nights where he was just fitting in and not scoring 28, 30 points per game.”
While all of the programs in the country were watching five-star prospect Nikolas Khamenia (who is now a freshman at Duke) on Johnson’s AAU team, BTI, Rohn and other Buffs staffers were there to see Johnson. Once he committed to CU in August 2024, there wasn’t any concern about another school swooping in late and stealing him away.
When he arrived in Boulder last summer, the Buffs realized they struck gold in a way they didn’t hadn’t realized. Once thought to be a potential redshirt candidate, Johnson proved to the CU staff on a trip to Australia that he would be one of the team’s best players as a freshman.
He leads the team in scoring, despite coming off the bench for the first 17 games, and has a stat profile that looks more like an elite big man than a skinny, 6-foot-1, 170-pound guard. He’s an efficient scorer with a true shooting percentage just under 67%, gets to the free throw line at a high rate and doesn’t turn the ball over.
In the history of Bart Torvik’s analytics site, which tracks stats dating to the start of the 2008-09 season, there have only been nine players who had a true shooting percentage of 60% or higher, a free throw rate of 70% or higher and a turnover percentage of 10 or below. Of those nine, two have been freshmen — Kentucky unicorn Anthony Davis and Johnson.
“That’s a unique talent,” Rohn said. “You look at him and you’re like, ‘How is he getting to the foul line?’ Usually it’s the strong, physical guys that drawing more contact and he’s always been a guy that draws fouls. It’s just going to continue to get better as he gets stronger, too.”
There’s no need to wait for the next Spencer Dinwiddie, Derrick White, McKinley Wright IV or KJ Simpson. The next star guard in Boulder has arrived.
“I love Isaiah Johnson,” Boyle said. “He’s a stud, he’s got the heart of a lion and he’s a warrior.”
The list: Top 5 freshmen in the Big 12
- Darryn Peterson, Kansas
This might be the best freshmen class any conference has ever had. The Big 12 has six teams in the top 18 of Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency rankings and four of the six have a freshman as their best player. The Jayhawks have the best freshman and the likely No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. While he’s only played in 10 games due to various injuries, Peterson has put up nearly 22 points per game on a really good efficiency and in just over 27 minutes per game.
- AJ Dybantsa, BYU
If you put Dybantsa at No. 1 ahead of Peterson because he’s been more available than his counterpart in Lawrence, go ahead. It’s a valid argument. Dybantsa has been hyped as the next great wing scoring prospect for multiple years and has lived up to the hype, ranking second in the nation in scoring at over 23 points per, thanks to an efficient 53% from the field and nearly nine free throws per game. He broke Danny Ainge’s record for BYU freshmen with 43 points in a win over Utah last week.
- Kingston Flemings, Houston
No one in the country has had a more impressive performance in a loss than Flemings, who had 42 points and six assists in Houston’s narrow defeat at Texas Tech last Saturday. A consensus top 25-player in his recruiting class, Flemings has exceeded expectations and raised his draft stock as much as anyone, averaging over 17 points and five assists as the point guard and best player for a Cougars team capable of getting back to the Final four.
- Brayden Burries and Koa Peat, Arizona
OK, so this is cheating, but it’s impossible to separate the Wildcats’ five-star freshman duo that has led them to a 21-0 start. Peat burst onto the scene with a 30-point game in the season opener against then-No. 3 Florida. He has just two 20-point games since. Buries, on the other hand, has come on strong in the last two months with six 20-point games since the start of December, including a game-high 29 points on ridiculous efficiency in a big win against Dybantsa and BYU on Monday.
- Isaiah Johnson, Colorado
Good players have to get left off this list, and that includes players that will be first-round draft picks. Johnson won’t be that this year, but he has a chance to become that in the coming years. What he’s doing for a Buffs team that needs all of his toughness and scoring is why he gets the nod over the likes of Baylor’s Tounde Yessoufou, Houston’s Chris Cenac Jr. and others.
Mid-Major Minute
The Billikens are back. After a solid first season under coach Josh Schertz, Saint Louis has already matched last year’s win total of 19 — in just 20 games. Sitting at No. 25 in KenPom, SLU is not just arguably the best mid-major team in the country, but a team that has a real shot to make it past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Its calling cards are a stout defense and a balanced offense with seven players averaging nine points or more.
Upset of the Week
Auburn 76, No. 16 Florida 67
It’s been a weird year in the SEC. The conference isn’t nearly the juggernaut it was last season when it sent two teams to the Final Four. There are still 10 SEC teams in the top 35 in KenPom, but it’s hard to identify the best team in the conference in any given week. Last week, though, it was Auburn. The Tigers went to Gainesville and knocked off the defending national champions, who are still the top SEC team in KenPom, thanks to 24 points from former Denver Prep Academy standout Keyshawn Hall.
Going Overseas
Sticking with the theme of undersized Colorado guards, let’s spotlight arguably the best of the Tad Boyle era, McKinley Wright IV. Now in his third full season overseas, the Minnesota native is in his first season with Dubai in the U.A.E. Across 35 games in the Adriatic League and Euroleague, Wright is averaging just under 12 points and six assists per game.