UNO needs to win four games in four days against mostly fresher opponents to take the Southland Conference men’s basketball tournament, but at least the Privateers have a puncher's chance.
Make that a shooter's chance.
Prolific junior guard Jordan Johnson — second in the NCAA in 3-point shooting percentage and seventh in 3-pointers made — is capable of getting white hot and carrying the Privateers (10-19, 7-11 Southland) much further than their No. 7 seed would suggest in the eight-team event. Their quest begins Sunday when they face No. 6 seed Houston Christian (10-21, 7-11) in the first round at 7:30 p.m., with the championship set for Wednesday at 4 p.m.
“Not to get cocky, but we know on a good day we can compete with the best,” said Johnson, a transfer from Denver who has another year of eligibility left. “We like being the underdogs. We like to fight.”
Southeastern Louisiana (18-13, 12-6) and Nicholls State (16-14, 11-7), which finished third and fourth, respectively, are better positioned for a run at the title than UNO. Both of them get a bye in the first round and will have to win three games in three days in a format designed to favor the top regular-season finishers — regular-season champion Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and runner-up Northwestern State get double byes to the semifinals — but not one of the higher-seeded teams has someone quite like Johnson.
Johnson, a 6-foot-1 guard, is 85 for 177 (48%) on 3-pointers, ranking one-hundredth of a percentage point behind Division I leader Wheza Panzo of Stetson. Johnson’s 3.54 makes per game are the sixth most nationally. Despite missing five games in February with a knee injury, he can break Bryson Robinson’s school record of 87 treys by hitting three against Houston Christian.
In two games against Houston Christian during the regular season, he went 13 of 17 from long range.
“We knew he had a chance to really be a fantastic scorer,” UNO coach Mark Slessinger said. “But once you got a chance to get to know his character, you knew he could be special. When guys end up at the right place, good things happen.”
Johnson’s college journey started at Hinds Community College in Mississippi, where the Memphis product played in 2019-20 and 2020-21. The school’s coach at the time, Yusef Fitzgerald, recognized Johnson’s potential immediately.
“He had a great motor but just needed to come out of his shell a little bit more,” Fitzgerald said. “He and I had some moments where I had to challenge him to come out of that shell, because I believed in him from Day One. He didn’t believe in himself at the time.”
Johnson already had the dead-eye shot, though. Fitzgerald charted him as hitting 73% of his 3-pointers in the first three weeks of practice.
After averaging 11.7 points as a freshman, he upped that total to 20.8 in his sophomore year while leading Hinds to the best winning percentage (.813) in program history and earning second-team All-America honors.
At Denver in 2021-22, he started 25 games, averaging 10.9 points. He not the focal point of the offense, though.
“It wasn’t my time,” he said. “I had veteran players on my team, and it was their time to shine. I just did what I could and what they needed me to do.”
Fitzgerald’s close relationship with UNO’s coaches led Johnson to UNO once he entered the transfer portal, and he filled the hole left by the graduation of prolific scoring point guard Derek St. Hilaire.
Averaging 17.7 points, Johnson has scored in double figures in all but two of the games he has played this season. Making his value even more clear, the Privateers lost all five games he missed after he hyperextended a knee and bruised a tendon in practice at the beginning of February.
When he returned well ahead of the original one-month recovery diagnosis, UNO won four in a row to climb out of the cellar and qualify for the tournament.
“It was horrible sitting out,” he said. “I’m really not 100%, but once the doctors gave me the OK to do anything dealing with basketball, I figured I could come out here and help my teammates, no matter what it was.”
The Privateers have become dangerous, beating Northwestern State and Nicholls down the stretch. Two weeks after losing 84-59 to the Colonels without Johnson, they won 88-82 as he erupted for 26 points, including a 28-foot bomb after twice trying to set up teammates for easy shots but getting the ball back with the shot clock about to expire.
He had no choice but to jack it up.
Swish.
“I’ll take those every time,” Slessinger said. “They make me look really smart.”