Kenny Johnson returning to IU basketball as an assistant coach

Kenny Johnson, who worked with the IU basketball program as an assistant coach under Tom Crean for two seasons, is returning to the program, Inside the Hall has confirmed.

Johnson will serve as an assistant coach under Darian DeVries, who was hired to lead the IU program on March 18.

The Oxon Hill, Maryland, native was on IU’s bench for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons. In Johnson’s first year with the program, Indiana won the Big Ten regular-season title and earned a No. 1 seed.

He was instrumental in IU’s recruitment of Troy Williams, Noah Vonleh, Robert Johnson and several others.

Johnson left IU after the 2013-14 season to join Rick Pitino’s staff at Louisville.

Considered one of the top recruiters in the country, Johnson served as an assistant coach last season at Georgetown under Ed Cooley. Prior to Georgetown, he spent two seasons on Archie Miller’s staff at Rhode Island.

Johnson has coached numerous NBA players including but not limited to Terry Rozier, Montrezl Harrell, Damion Lee, Jordan Nwora, Donovan Mitchell, Victor Oladipo, Cody Zeller, Noah Vonleh, Josh Hart and Jerami Grant.

Johnson is known as a top recruiter on a national level and an elite talent developer. After surveying more than 60 collegiate coaches, ESPN Insider named Johnson as the nation’s 10th-best recruiting assistant coach in a 2016 listing.

While at Louisville, Johnson was an assistant coach for two seasons before being promoted to an associate head coach prior to the 2016-17 season. He helped the program accumulate a record of 75-26, including an Elite 8 run in 2015 and a second-round appearance in 2017. While at Indiana University the program had a combined record of 46-22, while winning the Big Ten Championship, earning a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and reaching the NCAA Sweet 16 in 2013. While at Indiana, Johnson also helped the Hoosiers produce two top-20 recruiting classes, including a top-five class in 2013. While an assistant coach at Towson University, Johnson helped to assemble a top-five mid-major recruiting class.

He began his coaching career in 2002 as the associate head coach at Eleanor Roosevelt High School while eventually becoming the associate head coach at St. Paul VI Catholic High School for four years (2007-11).

While a high school coach, Johnson also served more than six years as a director and head of travel and logistics for the nationally recognized Nike Team Takeover AAU organization and was the head coach of its 16 and under age group during that stint. The program produced more than 53 Division I players and four future NBA players during that time.

Johnson attended Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Maryland, where his playing career was cut short due to several knee injuries in his second year of varsity basketball. As a senior at Oxon Hill in 1994, he was named Science and Technology Student of the Year.

He earned his Bachelor of Science in cell, molecular biology and genetics in 1999 at the University of Maryland at College Park, where he was a Benjamin Banneker Scholarship recipient. He worked as a protein chemist/molecular biologist at Human Genome Sciences in Rockville, Maryland after graduation.

A native of Oxon Hill, Johnson is married to his wife, Montoya, and has three sons, Amare, Mekai and Kash and one daughter Akylah.