The reigning Pac-12 Sixth Man of the Year is joining Pat Kelsey’s inaugural Louisville men’s basketball roster.
Koren Johnsona 6-foot-2, 175-pound sophomore guard who spent the past two seasons at Washington committed to the Cardinals on Monday after reportedly visiting campus this week, per a report from On3’s Joe Tipton.
A Seattle native, Johnson was Kelsey’s sixth pledge through the NCAA transfer portal this offseason. He still has two years of eligibility.
Joining him on the 2024-25 roster are J’Vonne Hadley, a senior guard from Colorado; Terrence Edwards Jr., a redshirt junior guard from James Madison; and two players who were members of Kelsey’s final team at Charleston, junior guard Reyne Smith and freshman forward James Scott.
Kelsey also secured the commitment of BYU junior center Aly Khalifa; but the 6-11, 270-pound Egyptian plans to redshirt during the 2024-25 season while recovering from a knee injury.
Johnson appeared in 31 games (five starts) during Washington’s 2023-24 season. He averaged 11.1 points on 41.1% shooting, shot 41-of-110 (37.3%) from 3-point range and posted a 1.97 assist-to-turnover ratio to go along with 2.2 rebounds and 1.2 steals in 24.2 minutes per contest.
His best game to date was when he scored a career-high 30 points during the Feb. 15 win over Stanford. It was the most points scored by a member of the Huskies off the bench since 2002 – and the most by an underclassman since 2017.
Washington finished the season with a 17-15 (9-11 Pac-12) record.
Before his firing in March, former Huskies coach Mike Hopkins said Johnson was “arguably the most talented player in our program.
“He can score; he can pass,” Hopkins said, according to a Dawgman report. “It’s the consistency part. He’s dynamic.”
ESPN named Johnson the 25th best point guard and top recruit in the state of Washington during the 2022 cycle. He attended Garfield High School and played for coach Brandon Roy, who was a lottery pick in the 2006 NBA Draft after an All-American career with the Huskies.
As of Monday, all of Louisville’s scholarship players for the 2023-24 season had entered the portal, which is open through May 1.
At the time of publication, five have found new homes: Skyy Clark (UCLA), Three White (Illinois), JJ Traynor (DePaul), Curtis Williams (Georgetown) and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (North Carolina State).
Koren Johnson Highlights: Watch the Louisville basketball transfer portal commit
This story will be updated.
Contact Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on the X at @brooksHolton.
This article originally appeared in the Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville Basketball Pat Kelsey Koren Johnson from Land Transfer Portal
