KD Johnson has found his last college stop. The former Auburn guard and fan-favorite announced his commitment to George Mason out of the transfer portal Friday.
Johnson will use his fifth and final year of eligibility, via the NCAA’s COVID-19 relief, to play with the Patriots in the Atlantic 10 conference.
Johnson’s departure from Auburn was an amicable one. Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl in his press conference following the end of the season said Johnson hopes to eventually return to Auburn to finish his degree.
In his three years as a Tiger, Johnson played in 102 games, averaging 9.4 points while shooting 38.2%, but he got fewer minutes this past season than he did in the previous two.
“There’s only so many minutes, only so much opportunity. We just talked about the fact that: Would the joy of the game be more if perhaps he was someplace else and had more of an opportunity to do more of what KD does,” Pearl said. “Our discussion was really, really good. KD Johnson will return to Auburn to receive his degree when the time comes. He’s really close to his degree, and he perhaps could go someplace else and maybe get that degree in this next year. But he really wants to be a unit short. He wants an Auburn degree. So does his family. When he’s done playing wherever he goes and plays, we’re going to make that happen.”
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Johnson announced his move to George Mason on social media.
The Patriots play in Fairfax, Va., outside Washington, D.C. Geographically, it’s a departure for the Decatur, Ga., native who played the first four years of his career with Georgia and Auburn — but Johnson did play a year of prep ball with Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia before UGA.
Auburn, meanwhile, overhauls its lineup of guards with Aden Holloway and Tre Donaldson also departed and with Furman transfer JP Pegues committed to join the team along with incoming five-star signee Tahaad Pettiford. Shooter Denver Jones remains.
“I want to congratulate K.D. on three years of being in the NCAA Tournament, a regular-season championship, a tournament championship — that’s a pretty good three-year run. It really is,” Pearl said. “What I anticipated in my meetings with K.D. was that our roster in the backcourt, particularly with Denver Jones returning, it’s gonna be a bit more of the same for K.D. In other words, coming off the bench, not quite being able to play as freely as he would’ve liked to play.”