Keyontae Johnson Injects Hope into the UF Basketball Equation

“Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.” – Samuel Smiles

The power of hope was unleashed on the Gator Nation Wednesday afternoon in the form of a tweet from a young warrior who has already proven that we continue to live in an age of miracles.

Keyontae Johnson broke a few months of silence when he announced on Twitter “I plan to keep working to prepare for the upcoming season. My story continues to be written and driven by God! Go Gators!”

We have no way of knowing if Keyontae Johnson will actually be cleared to suit up for the Gators next season nor do we know if he is able to play if he will be anything close to the player who was expected to be the Southeastern Conference Player of the Year back before the 2020-21 season began. If he plays at all it will be a miracle. If he is able to contribute it will be a most unexpected bonus.

What is important is that there is hope because a little more than four months ago were at all certain Keyontae Johnson would even be alive right now, much less contemplating the possibility that he will suit up once again for the Gators and possibly play basketball at a very high level. If he is able to be anything close to the star he was at when he collapsed on the floor of the Donald Tucker Center in Tallahassee just minutes into Florida’s game with Florida State back on December 12, it will be perhaps the greatest feel good story in Florida basketball history. It will be the kind of story that provides the script for a great sports movie.

In a little more than five months from now the Gators will begin practice for the 2021-22 season. We may not know by then if Keyontae has been cleared to practice but he believes that it’s possible and where there is belief hope springs eternal. About the only thing we know about the intersection of health and basketball as it relates to Keyontae is that he’s been allowed to do strength and other fitness training plus do some shooting. We know little else right now but is it even important that we know? Just the fact that he says he’s “steadily making progress daily” when it comes to health lends hope that he will be on the O-Dome court again and will hear the roar of an appreciative Gator Nation.

When you combine hope with an unbreakable self-confidence that is fueled by faith that with God all things are possible, you have a platform from which miracles can be launched. We’ve already seen a string of miracles with Keyontae so who are we to doubt that we’ll see yet another in the future?

The miracles actually began on that December afternoon when he passed out and fell face first on the floor of the Tucker Center in Tallahassee. Few of us understood that in the moments after his legs gave way and he lost consciousness that we were witnessing a miracle. A cardiologist just happened to be at the game sitting courtside and the moment she saw Keyontae fall she rushed onto the floor to render swift, medical assistance that proved to be life saving.

“I was passed out,” Johnson was quoted on the Florida team site. “I could have died. She jumped out on the court and saved me. If it isn’t for her, I may not have had a second chance in life. You just can’t take life for granted.”

We didn’t know until days later of the second miracle, performed by the doctors at Tallahassee Memorial. They placed Keyontae in a medically induced coma for two days, another life-saving decision. Keyontae survived and was responsive faster than anyone could have anticipated.

Days later he was transferred back to Gainesville where the doctors at Shands took over. Under their care Keyontae made so much progress that he was released from the hospital and able to rejoin the team, not as a player, but as an extension of Mike White as a student-assistant coach.

If you aren’t one to believe in miracles, then consider this: Less than three weeks after a near-death experience Keyontae Johnson was coaching his buddies, offering advice and encouragement, and most of all serving as a symbol of hope and strength for teammates drained emotionally by the traumatic experience in Tallahassee. In the 17 days from the time Keyontae collapsed until the Gators opened the SEC portion of their season with Vanderbilt in Nashville, serious consideration was given to cancelling the season. If the team had opted out, who could have blamed them, but they chose instead to play. Even so, it’s a season that could have gone south in a hurry because Keyontae wasn’t just Florida’s best player but he was the team’s emotional rock as well.

So, they adapted, helped by Keyontae’s presence at every practice, on the sideline during games both home and away, traveling with the team on the road. You could see him talking with players during time outs. He had a calming influence on the team and likely prevented the Florida season from going south.

Such is the power of hope.

This was a roller coaster of a season. There were games that the Gators played like a team capable of beating anyone in the country. Just ask Tennessee, which came to the O-Dome ranked sixth in the country and left on the short end of a humiliating 26-point beat down. There were also games in which the Gators could have lost to anyone in the country. Witness that disaster at the O-Dome against a vastly inferior South Carolina team, one of the worst losses in Mike White’s six years as Florida’s head coach.

Through it all, Keyontae Johnson was a rock that the Gators could cling to in the difficult times. When bodies grew weary and exhaustion set in, when it felt like simply putting one foot in front of another was too big a chore, all they had to do was look to the sideline and there he was – Keyontae, always positive, always encouraging, always offering advice honed by personal experience, the penultimate teammate and friend.

Keyontae Johnson coaches his teammates from the bench. Photo Credit: Hannah White

There was another traumatic experience ahead, this of the COVID-19 variety that lasted 13 days with three games erased. When play resumed the Gators were a .500 team, five wins, five losses. Florida fans lamented every loss, some going so far as throwing up their hands in despair and calling for athletic director Scott Stricklin to either fire Mike White or put him on the shortest of leashes.

Not everyone saw things through the orange and blue glasses of Gator fans, however. Former Long Beach State and Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, now a respected analyst with ESPN, thought White did a tremendous job of holding the team together and getting them to the NCAA Tournament.

“Florida, I think they’ve over-achieved,” Greenberg told Paul Finebaum. “I think Mike has done a tremendous job after that tragedy they went through and what they had to witness even though Keyontae is with the team.”

In the NCAA Tournament, the Gators won a game they shouldn’t have against Virginia Tech and they lost one they should have won in the second round against Oral Roberts. The Gators were capable of making a far deeper run but we can’t forget they could have also finished the season as an SEC bottom feeder without a postseason.

What happened after the Oral Roberts loss was the equivalent of throwing 50-gallon drums of gasoline onto an already raging fire. Both Gator fans who were annoyed by a 15-10 season and those who have been supportive of White nearly had apoplexy when there was a swift wholesale exit of six players. Tre Mann was expected to go since he’s a sure first rounder with a legitimate chance of working his way into the NBA Draft lottery. Scottie Lewis going pro was unexpected considering he was the single-most inconsistent player on the Florida roster. Many expected him to transfer but going pro? That remains a head scratcher.

Noah Locke’s departure was thought to be a foretelling of things to come, particularly since he and Keyontae have often been described as twin brothers by different mothers. When Locke left, conventional wisdom said Keyontae Johnson was as good as gone, but that never happened. Locke was followed into the transfer portal rather quickly by Omar Payne, Ques Glover and Osayi Osifo. The keyboard cowboys on the internet called for Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin to fire White immediately before the cupboard was laid completely bare, especially after Locke (Louisville), Payne (Illinois), Glover (Samford) and Osifo (Jacksonville) found new homes almost immediately.

A funny thing happened on the way to the tar and feathering of Florida’s head coach, however. Almost before the screen door could hit the final departing player in the posterior on their way out the door, the basketball program began taking on the qualities of the ancient Egyptian phoenix, a bird that was consumed by fire only to rise from the ashes, stronger than ever before. The four departing players were replaced from the transfer portal by four players whose careers at their previous schools have been more accomplished. From a pride and public relations standpoint the departures hurt, but that was offset by four incoming players whose stat lines dwarf those of the four departures.

White outrecruited Kansas for Brandon McKissic, one of the three or four most coveted players in the transfer portal. The Missouri-Kansas City combo guard is a high volume scorer (17.2 last year) in addition to being the Summit League’s Defensive Player of the Year and a finalist for the Lefty Driesell National Defensive Player of the Year. That was followed by the commitment of power forward C.J. Felder from Boston College. He’s 6-7, but plays 6-10, a prolific shot blocker (2.2 per game) and a substantial offensive upgrade (9.7 per game) from either Payne (3.8) or Osifo (1.9). White outrecruited a number of ACC and Big East Elites as well as Arkansas, Ole Miss and Tennessee to land Felder.

It was a battle between LSU, Ole Miss, Arkansas and Alabama among others for Myreon Jones, another stout defensive player and a knockdown 3-point artist who was Penn State’s leading scorer. Phlandrous Fleming Jr. was thought to be a mortal lock for perennial national power Virginia when he committed to UF. He was the Big South Conference’s two-time Defensive Player of the Year, a 20-point per game scorer and 7.4 rebounder.

The four transfers are more than just tapping the brakes on what seemed to be a skidding program. They are an upgrade, but still, it took Keyontae’s tweet to cast aside the negativity to deliver a powerful and much-needed injection of hope. This is what the Florida basketball program desperately needed. This is what Mike White needed.

It says plenty that Keyontae was on the NBA radar even with his medical concerns. Had he elected to enter the transfer portal, it would have been a who’s who of the college game lining up for a shot at a player who, by character alone, would represent a substantial roster upgrade. He could have gone home to be surrounded by friends and family while taking a year off to get healthy and survey his options.

He could have done all those things but instead he’s coming back to the University of Florida for a chance to play at least one more year – he has two years of eligibility remaining – for Mike White. He is coming back to the University of Florida because he trusts the medical professionals at Shands and believes they are the best choice to improve his health to the point that he can return to playing basketball. This is where he wants to be. Mike White is the coach he wants to play for. The doctors at Shands are the ones he wants to treat him.

What a powerful statement that is. What extraordinary timing for the announcement.

Perhaps Keyontae Johnson wasn’t thinking about the necessity of this announcement when he took to Twitter, but whether planned for maximum effect or not, it has made a clear statement to everyone who follows Florida basketball that reports of the basketball program’s demise are greatly exaggerated. We won’t know for another five months at the earliest if Keyontae will be cleared medically to play again and getting cleared is just the first step in the process. Once he’s able to practice again, we’ll find out how much of a physical toll this injury – whatever it was – has taken out of him. Will he be as strong or as quick as before? Will he be able to leap as high or make the same shots? And, every bit as important, how has the collapse affected him emotionally? Will he be able to block out everything from the past and simply focus on playing hard and playing well? Or will he have it in the back of his mind that another collapse could be right around the corner?

It will be months before we know those answers, but whether Keyontae Johnson can play again or not, he is a symbol of hope and courage who wants to be a Florida Gator.