Sports

Transfer’s play keeps Syracuse smiling

SYRACUSE — Wes Johnson calmly dribbles two basketballs inside the cozy confines of the sparkling new Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center. Seconds later, he slams home a dunk, then swishes a 3-pointer from the corner, all while flashing his radiant smile.

“You can’t beat winning. It’s wonderful,” said Johnson, the leading scorer and rebounder for fourth-ranked Syracuse. “I have great teammates and we’re out there just playing hard, having fun. That’s the main thing.”

Just past the midpoint of what is likely to be his only season with the Orange (20-1, 7-1 Big East), it’s almost unfathomable to think that league coaches left the 22-year-old transfer from Iowa State off their preseason all-conference team. Johnson, who sat out last season because of NCAA rules, has blossomed into one of the best players in the nation and is among the top 30 finalists for the John R. Wooden Award, given annually to college basketball’s top player.

“He’s steady. He’s there every night,” said Orange coach Jim Boeheim, who warned everyone last season that Johnson would be a player to be reckoned with in 2009-10 after watching him perform in practice. “He does a little bit of everything. He’s not a guy that looks to score all the time, but he can score. He’s just a solid player, good night in and night out, and he’s quiet about it. He’s the most unselfish player I’ve ever coached.”

Johnson was lightly recruited out of high school in Corsicana, Texas, and almost became lost in the sometimes shady world of prep school basketball.

After committing to play at Louisiana-Monroe in 2005, he changed his mind when the coach who recruited him left. Johnson briefly considered junior college in Texas before opting to go the prep-school route to improve his standardized test scores and maybe his college of choice.

After stops at the Patterson School in North Carolina, Eldon Academy in Michigan, and with his stepbrother in Detroit, Johnson eventually committed to Iowa State, largely due to the presence of assistant coach Jean Prioleau, who originally had tried to recruit him to Wichita State.

“We didn’t know if he was able to come in and be an impact player in the Big 12, but we needed someone,” said Prioleau, who has since moved to TCU. “I think the timing was right for him. We had a lot of playing time available. He took that and performed really well.”

If not for Kevin Durant, Johnson likely would have been Big 12 freshman of the year in 2006-07, when he started 30 games for the Cyclones and averaged more than 12 points and nearly eight rebounds. But after an injury-plagued sophomore season — a stress fracture in his left foot limited Johnson’s ability to perform and went undetected — Johnson had a falling-out with the coaching staff and decided to transfer.

In his Hall of Fame career, Boeheim has developed a knack for finding jewels other coaches have overlooked. Landing Johnson, though, was simply a stroke of good fortune.

Johnson returned to Detroit to mull his future, and word reached Syracuse assistant Rob Murphy, who had seen Johnson play AAU ball. Murphy, who grew up in the Motor City, made some calls, then looked at a DVD of highlight clips.

“I watched that and knew right then he could be a pro,” Murphy said.

Convincing Boeheim, who has taken only a handful of fourth-year transfers in his 34 years as head coach, was another matter.

“Coach was kind of iffy about it because we don’t take transfers,” Murphy said. “Usually, when someone’s transferring there’s a problem is what coach says. There’s always something.”

Not this time.

Boeheim’s interest was piqued because Murphy received good feedback from his Big 12 contacts. Any reservations Boeheim might have harbored were dispelled when he talked to Iowa State coach Greg McDermott.

“Coach came back and said, ’That kid, Wesley Johnson, I talked to coach McDermott about him and he says he’s a really, really good kid. We might want to get him up here,’” Murphy said.

Forty-eight hours after Johnson visited Syracuse he canceled visits to Ohio State, Pitt and West Virginia and signed with the Orange.

The 6-foot-7 small forward first got noticed when he earned most outstanding player honors at the 2K Sports Classic tournament in November, scoring 42 points and grabbing 19 rebounds in lopsided victories over California and defending national champion North Carolina at Madison Square Garden.

He’s gone on to average 17.1 points (on 11 shots per game) and nine rebounds and is second on the team with 40 blocks and 37 steals going into Syracuse’s game at DePaul on Saturday.

“He leads by example, on and off the court,” Murphy said. “He takes academics seriously. He’s a big brother to a lot of these guys (on the bench), just showing them the way because they’re struggling now not playing. He kind of lets them know what he went through at Iowa State and what they need to do to get better on and off the court.

Perhaps that’s why an Orange team that lost its top three scorers — Jonny Flynn, Eric Devendorf and Paul Harris — has jelled better than any since Syracuse won the national championship in 2003.

“It’s great,” Murphy said. “Any time you have your leading scorer and your leading rebounder, the guy that’s playing the most minutes, that is your most unselfish guy, is unbelievable. It can’t help but rub off on the other guys and make them understand that it’s all about team, it’s all about winning.”

No wonder Wes Johnson is smiling.