David Johnson named All-ACC First Team & Most Improved Player of the Year
Louisville basketball received a fair share of recognition from the ACC when the postseason player awards and teams were announced last week.
As we know, Jordan Nwora was named All-ACC First Team and finished second overall in ACC Player of the Year voting, while Dwayne Sutton was named All-ACC Honorable Mention and junior big man Malik Williams finished second in the sixth man of the year voting.
Next season for Louisville should be no different when it comes to player recognition, as I am predicting that not only will Malik Williams be included somehow but rising sophomore David Johnson will finish as a member of the All-ACC First Team while also winning the Most Improved Player of the Year award.
That’s quite a big jump from freshman to sophomore season, huh?
Well, it’s definitely not as crazy as you might think considering what we witnessed from Johnson down the stretch of the season for Louisville. As the Cards began to pick up momentum in conference play, the talk became more and more focused on when Johnson would 1) get more playing time due to his impact off the bench in small doses and 2) when would Chris Mack finally insert him into the starting lineup?
The performance against Duke changed everything for Louisville in my opinion. As Alex Stengel detailed in his piece on Louisville’s biggest wins of the season, that was the game that Johnson confirmed that the juice was worth the squeeze.
On a court with the eventual ACC Player of the Year and multiple five-star freshmen, Johnson was head and shoulders above the rest of the players and it wasn’t even close. Not only did he help lead Louisville to their arguably their biggest win of the season but he did so on the road in Cameron Indoor as a true freshman playing in that environment for the first time.
The scary thing is that performance can become the norm, and it’s exactly why I expect him to take the next leap into becoming an elite point guard in the ACC.
For the second straight year, the ACC will be depleted of it’s best guards as Tre Jones, Elijah Hughes, (First Team) Markell Johnson, Trent Forrest, (Second Team) and Cole Anthony (Third Team) are all either out of eligibility or likely to enter the 2020 NBA Draft and hire an agent.
That leaves David Johnson competing with the likes of Kiheh Clark (Third Team), Jose Alverado, Mike DeVoe, Chris Lykes, TJ Gibbs, and Jay Heath competing for the “best guard in the ACC” title.
From what I saw out of Johnson last year I have absolutely zero reasons to believe he won’t develop into one of, if not the best point guard in the ACC in 2020. Johnson proved the ability to run the ship at point guard on an elite team last season, even as a secondary/tertiary option even leading the ACC in assists during conference play.
With a full summer of development (hopefully without major injury) look for Johnson to become the guy that has everyone excited about Louisville basketball.