OMAHA, Neb. — Know this: Elijah Johnson does not fear change. He didn't fear it as a seventh grader, when he came home one spring day to find his father had packed up the family home in Gary, Ind., and was moving the family to Las Vegas.
"Tough times. The streets. It was a bad city," said the Kansas guard, whose Jayhawks are slated to meet Purdue in the third round of the NCAA tournament Sunday night at CenturyLink Center Omaha. "A lot of my friends and family were just going through — not regular problems, but THEIR regular problems. People dying before I could get to high school. All my friends just dying."
A couple of days before school was scheduled to break for the summer, Elijah's dad Marcus told him he'd had enough. They were leaving.
"And I didn't believe him," the younger Johnson recalled. "But when school let out, I (went) home, (and) when I got home, the house was packed up. We left, and Vegas was where we landed."
Know this: Elijah Johnson does not fear expectations. Tyshawn Taylor will be gone next fall; Thomas Robinson, too, in all likelihood. A Jayhawks team that's already reinvented itself and barely missed a beat is slated to undergo another roster makeover of sorts — welcome to the Ben McLemore Show — in a few months.
As Kansas fans settle in for another romp through Bracketville and watch Johnson spell Taylor at the point, they can't help but ask themselves: Is Elijah ready to take the next step? What are we getting next winter: The Johnson of the first half in Friday's win over Detroit, who notched as many turnovers as points (three)? Or the Johnson of the second, who played 18 minutes of turnover-free ball and netted 12 points in the process?
"Don't be worried," backcourt mate Connor Teahan said of Johnson, who heads into Sunday averaging 9.8 points per contest while leading the squad in 3-point makes (59) and steals (50). "Don't be worried at all. He's a great player. I don't think he's been as aggressive offensively as he could be. And I think the fact that we have Tyshawn, he's been playing so well, a lot of people just kind of default to Tyshawn taking (over) the offense. And I think Elijah does that, too."
Know this: Elijah Johnson does not fear expectations. You ask about the legacies of Jacque Vaughn, Kirk Hinrich, Mario Chalmers and Sherron Collins. You ask about filling Taylor's shoes, if he's ready to take the torch when it's passed.
The dude just grinned.
"Definitely," Johnson replied, his voice almost taking on a tone of incredulity. "Because I was born to do this. This is my time."
The bulk of that time, to date, has been spent on the wing, manning an off-guard slot and usually guarding the other team's best backcourt scorer. But Taylor has been working to help groom the 6-foot-4 Johnson as his logical successor. The two friends spent a month together this past summer attending former NBA coach John Lucas' basketball camp down in Houston. Heck, they even shared the same hotel room.
"He was driving me everything but crazy, man," Taylor said, laughing. "But I love him to death. We both came a long way and I'm really proud of him. And I'm sure he feels the same about me."
Know this: Elijah Johnson doesn't fear the Boilermakers. He was born in Gary, and spent most of his formative years in the northern part of the state. He watched a lot of Purdue and Indiana hoops as a kid, yet claims allegiance to neither.
"They didn't even know I was from there," Johnson said of the Big Ten's Boilers, "by the time I was being recruited."
Although he does have one Purdue tie, however small — having visited basketball camps run by former Boilermaker All-American (and Gary native) Glenn Robinson, one of his earliest basketball heroes.
"I used to always go to his camps in the summertime, but I was a little too small to remember his era (at Purdue)," said Johnson, who would've attended Robinson's alma mater, Roosevelt High School, had he not moved with his father to Nevada. "I was more (a fan) of (his) Milwaukee Bucks era, when he was playing in the NBA, with Ray Allen and everything."
To this day, Johnson still proudly considers himself an Indiana baller, rooted in Indiana principles: Defense, unselfishness, work ethic, busting your tail on both ends of the floor, where victories are measured in terms of trophies and floor burns, not in the box score.
"I see the light coming on," coach Bill Self said. "In a big way."
In March, with the glare of the postseason burning the hottest, Johnson's responded with a second gear: Over his last four contests, he's averaged 16.3 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists. Sometimes, change is good.
You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter @seankeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com.
