Johnson could play key role at Alabama

By LARRY VAUGHT



LEXINGTON — All summer Dakari Johnson worked on losing weight and staying on a diet that he could sustain during Kentucky’s basketball season.

“I feel like I’m way lighter. I feel like I’m moving better. I try to work on my perimeter defense too. I just move my feet and stuff like that,” said Johnson Thursday as UK prepares for its game at Alabama Saturday afternoon.

He says he mainly eats a lot of sald and grilled food and drinks a lot of water. He doesn’t want to add the pounds back he lost since last season.

Teammate Aaron Harrison said the sophomore center is “playing great” and has changed dramatically from last year.

“I’ve never seen someone change as much as he has over a year. He just works so hard and I’m really proud of him and happy for him,” Harrison said. “His work ethic is crazy now. He’s lost a lot of weight. He works hard and always tries to work the hardest on the team.”

Johnson went through a mild slump but played a solid game for UK in Tuesday’s win over Missouri and could be a key against Alabama’s physical defense Saturday.

“I think it’s really hard for him to find guys to play against because he is so big and strong. It’s kind of tough to play against smaller guys when you are that size. I think he just figured out how to get around smaller guys and finish over them. Once he figured that out, he’s kind of unstoppable in the post,” Harrison said.

Johnson has almost always drawn double teams in the post recently, much like former teammate Julis Randle did last year when he went inside.

“Because he can score the ball easily on one guy. So you have to bring another defender or else he’s going to score,” Harrison said.

Kentucky coach John Calipari said Johnson’s shooting technique got sloppy and he wasn’t always jumping and shooting the ball as quickly as he should have before teams could overload the defense on him.

“It’s hard to play the right way. You try to go back to see if I can do it that other way. It’s much easier, and then what happens is your confidence gets down. And it’s not just him; we had a lot of guys. You go through that. What we’re asking them to do is really hard. And then they figure out you know what, I’ve got to do this this way,” Calipari said.

“He’s just better in practice now. I told them you can almost watch guys in practice and say if he plays like that, watch what happens. But it’s hard. It’s hard to run really hard every time. Outrun your guy like Karl(-Anthony) Towns fought.”

Johson said during his slump, he just “tried to do my best to come out with energy and just pick it up.”

He goes into Saturday’s game averaging 8.3 points, 6.1 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per game and shooting 56 percent from the field and 58.5 percent at the fou line.

Here’s more of what Johnson had to say before Thursday’s practice.

Question: What did Calipari say to you during your recent meeting?
Johnson: “He just said, he had meetings with us, he just told each and every one of us to come off the bench and be energetic. For our group, we’re kind of like the energy guys, and (he) just wanted us to continue that.”

Question: What is it liked being swarmed by smaller guys when he gets the ball?
Johnson: “It’s expected. We’re used to teams doubling down and going on the inside. As long as we’re shooting it well that’s going to open it up.”

Question: What does Calipari want him to do to beat the defense?
Johnson: “Just make quicker moves, don’t hold the ball to long, and work the defense they’ve set up.”

Question: Are there drills he can do to get better?
Johnson: “We work on that all the time. The managers will have a pad and you have to make quick moves against them, so we work on that all of the time.”

Question: How much time does he spend on free throws?
Johnson: “A lot of time – before, after practice. During the break we had, we would come in and just shoot a hundred free throws.”

Question: Did making free throws at the end of the Texas A&M game give him confidence?
Johnson: “Yeah it did. I just went to the line and I knew, like if I followed my same routine, they would go in, so going up there with confidence is a big thing.”

Question: Does he know much about Alabama?
Johnson: “Not really. I’m sure we’ll go over their stats today and just start preparing for them. They’re a really good team. They have a lot of players back from last year, so we’ll probably start watching video and tape today.”

Question: What is different about this team’s mentality going on the road compared to last year’s team?
Johnson: “I mean we have some guys (who have) been on the road before. Last year we were all freshmen. We really weren’t used to that. I guess we’re kind of used to that now.”

Question: How surprised he was with two overtime games to start league play?
Johnson: “It’s a real big surprise, but we need games like that, close games, and it just showed that we can step up at those times.”

Question: What does it say about the freshmen stepping up in the road games like they did at Louisville and Texas A&M?
Johnson: “That they have a lot of confidence and they want to win and they have a great competitive spirit about them.”