Kansas State Wildcats win recruiting battle for Florida transfer Keyontae Johnson

Kansas State basketball fans can begin dreaming a little bit about what the Wildcats may be able to accomplish in Jerome Tang’s first season as head coach.

The Wildcats added a big-time transfer to their roster on Saturday when Keyontae Johnson announced his intentions to finish his college career in Manhattan.

The 6-foot-5 and 229-pound forward originally from Norfolk, Virginia, was once a star player at Florida and will now try to make a similar impact at K-State. He averaged 14 points and 7.1 rebounds during his last full season with the Gators in 2019-2020.

He was a first-team all-conference player in the SEC as a sophomore and the league’s preseason player of the year heading into his junior campaign.

If Johnson can duplicate those numbers in a purple uniform, K-State will have a realistic path to the NCAA Tournament and a high finish in the Big 12 standings. Both of those aspirations seemed like a pipe dream a few short months ago when Tang was scrambling to rebuild the team’s roster.

Johnson picked K-State over Memphis, Nebraska and Western Kentucky.

K-State hosted Johnson on a recruiting visit in July. There was optimism that the Wildcats were in the lead for his services at that time, but Tang had to wait until after Johnson made trips to Memphis and Nebraska to find out his decision.

Johnson will be an exciting late addition to Tang’s inaugural recruiting class with K-State. Not only does he give the Wildcats 12 scholarship players next season, he gives them a potential a difference-maker in the front court.

The Wildcats were projected to be the nation’s 68th best team in Bart Torvik’s preseason ratings index before Johnson joined the mix. But K-State jumped up to No. 42 after his production was factored in.

In other words, he could be the difference between competing for a spot in the NIT and qualifying for the NCAA Tournament.

But there are some questions about how quickly he regain his form.

Johnson hasn’t played in a live game in nearly two years. His last appearance came on December 21, 2020, when he collapsed during a nonconference game at Florida State because of a heart issue.

Police later investigated him for potentially sexually assaulting a woman in the state of Florida, but the charges against him were ultimately dismissed.

Since then, he has been mulling his future options. He reportedly has a $5 million insurance policy that he could cash in on by medically retiring from basketball. But he was a projected to be a first-round NBA Draft selection before his scary injury.

It seems he has decided to play college basketball again.

His next stop: Kansas State.