With freshman point guard Mikel Brown Jr. missing time due to an injury, Louisville head coach activated London Johnson over the weekend, though the 21-year-old former NBA G-Leaguer did not make his Cardinals’ debut in Saturday’s 75-62 win over Boston College. Then, on Tuesday night, the second-year head man reversed course, announcing that Johnson will once again be redshirting the season. He has two years of eligibility remaining.
Johnson signed with the program in November and joined the program in mid-December, with the season already underway. Kelsey revealed on Tuesday night that the 6-foot-3 guard felt “overwhelmed” in the build up to Saturday’s game.
“He was starting to get ready for the Boston College game, and I think it started to be like, 'Holy crap, like, I don't know if I can go out and be an effective player, not knowing our system, not knowing our terminology,' and kind of had a little bit of a change of heart," Kelsey said. "And I get it, I get it 100 percent. There's a lot of implications that go along with a decision like that, only having two years of eligibility. I don't disparage his decision in any way, shape or form.”
London Johnson will redshirt 2025-26 season to preserve his remaining 2 years of eligibility
Johnson was once a top recruit, ranked 46th in the country in the 2022 class, when he signed a $1.1 million contract to join the G-League Ignite team. Ignite is a now-defunct initiative for the NBA to control its own talent pipeline and provide players with an alternative to college, where they could get paid. You can see now why it didn’t work out and why Johnson and others are looking to get back into college basketball for their bite of the revenue-sharing pool and NIL money flowing into the sport.
Johnson didn’t make the jump from Ignite to the NBA, and because of that, it’s paramount that he preserves his final season of eligibility because it could represent the most valuable potential earning years of his career.
Louisville could desperately use help in the backcourt with Brown, the team’s second-leading scorer, missing the team’s last seven games, but if Johnson doesn’t feel ready, he would burn a year of eligibility while hurting his team and his value all at once. That’s a lose-lose-lose situation, and Kelsey is smart to sidestep it.
Over the last seven games, with Brown out of the lineup, the Cardinals are 3-4 and 2-3 in ACC play. Louisville slipped to No. 20 in this week’s AP Poll, and after Tuesday night’s 79-70 loss to No. 16 Virginia, it will be in danger of falling out of the poll altogether.