Talented guard Isaiah Johnson hits the transfer portal, could home ties give UCLA a chance?

Talented guard from Colorado, Isaiah Johnson announced his intentions to hit the transfer portal. He is a player that can score the ball very well and as a freshman last season averaged 16.9 points per game. He is going to be highly recruited in the portal and will have a lot of options. UCLA has 31 points per game at the minimum they will need to replace. That goes between Donovan Dent and Tyler Bilodeau. As they also await a college eligibility decision on Skyy Clark.

This will be a long shot to be able to bring in Johnson as a lot of teams will be in the mix. But UCLA has shown in the past. They are willing to dip into NIL to get players. They paid a pretty penny to bring in Dent last season. They will need to do the same this offseason, if they want to find a way to get past the round of 32. Because the clock is ticking on the Mick Cronin era if they continue to fizzle out. Since Jaime Jaquez Jr. and that 2023 team graduated out, there hasn’t been much excitement in Westwood.

Johnson is a very talented player and would fill a large scoring gap on this UCLA team. He could pair with Trent Perry to be one of the best scoring backcourts in the nation. Johnson can score from all over the floor and had shooting splits last season of 48.6/37.8/82.1. He is also a good pressure defender and averaged a steal per game this past season. Cronin preachers defense, and Johnson could fit in perfectly to the system.

Now here is the fun part that may give UCLA an opportunity. Johnson is from Los Angeles. Could he take a similar route to Dent and decide that he wants to be closer to home? That is 100% possible and could give UCLA it’s best opportunity to land him in the portal. With 21 games last season of at least 15 points, that would go a long way in helping UCLA replenish some of it’s scoring.