GG Jackson is the star. Meechie Johnson might be the engine that makes Gamecocks go
The excitement permeating Colonial Life Arena dissipated almost as soon as it was ignited.
As five-star freshman GG Jackson tip-slammed home two of his 18 points during his South Carolina debut, point guard Meechie Johnson gingerly picked himself off the floor and headed to the locker room.
Johnson would return three minutes later, directly correlated to an early 15-point lead devolving into one-point deficit late in the first half of Tuesday’s nervy 80-77 win over S.C. State.
“I feel like he opens up the gaps to attack the wings or attack from the corner,” Jackson said. “But even when he’s out there (away from the basket), he’s a threat like from anywhere because he can go off the dribble as well.”
The sample-size was small. Frankly, three minutes in the first half of the first game of the 2022 season is far from enough to draw major conclusions in a campaign that, barring overtimes, will last 1,280 minutes in the regular season.
But on a night when South Carolina eked out a win over an S.C. State squad that stats guru Ken Pomeroy ranked No. 350 out of 363 teams in Division I and said USC had a 99% chance for victory, it was Johnson’s brief absences that highlighted how crucial the Ohio State transfer figures to be this winter.
“Meechie, he runs the show,” said forward Hayden Brown, who led all scorers with 21 points. “The point guard position is such a heady position. You initiate all the offense. When you lose somebody like him — whether it’s a cramp or whatever — you have to adjust.”
The former Buckeye had his moments on Tuesday.
Johnson cashed home a 3-pointer from the top left wing for the first points of the young season. He bobbed his head up and down, his braids bouncing in unison, as he headed back down the floor — a swaggy display for a team that may well see its share of ebbs and flows in 2022.
Coming off a lackadaisical end to the first half, it was Johnson who snatched an outlet pass from Jackson, steadied from that same left wing and sniped home the second of his two 3-pointers on the night.
The bucket sparked a frenetic pace to the second 20 minutes of competition Tuesday. The Gamecocks grabbed momentum and ran with it, hitting 7 of their first 9 shots out of the break and outscoring the Bulldogs 18-10 over the half’s first five minutes.
“He’s a really good creator for our team,” Paris said. “He can get downhill, get in the paint and make passes in a way that, when you catch it, you have an advantage. I think some other guys see the pass. They can make the pass. But by the time that pass gets there, the defense has recovered enough that you don’t have the advantage that you originally thought you saw.”
Suffering a lower leg injury minutes later that saw him sidelined for the second time in Saturday’s contest, Johnson’s second-half departure again left the Gamecocks fighting for a consistent creating presence outside of their starting point guard.
Citadel transfer Hayden Brown notched 13 of his 21 points in the second half. Jackson, too, found a groove, fighting for a handful of big buckets.
But postgame, Paris praised Johnson for gutting out a second injury in as many halves, and for voluntarily pulling himself off the floor late as the Bulldogs clawed back.
“Do you think a guy wants to pull himself out of the game at that at that?” Paris asked rhetorically. “He was honest enough to me to say, ‘Our best chance is if something gets to happening and I have to be called into action. I’m not capable of doing defensively what I really want to do.’ ...That’s maturity. That’s a selfless guy. That’s a teammate.”
Jackson, by all accounts, will draw most of the headlines around Columbia this year — and rightfully so.
He’s the ex-No. 1 recruit who spurned North Carolina for his hometown school. He’s the most high-profile men’s commitment in school history this side of football’s Jadeveon Clowney or Marcus Lattimore.
Still, it’s Johnson who may prove the difference of whether South Carolina ends up in the cellar of the SEC, as preseason prognosticators predicted.
This story was originally published November 9, 2022 at 8:30 AM.
