Ben Johnson, a sophomore guard on the Northwestern men’s basketball team, has decided to transfer and has been granted a release from the university, the father of one of his teammates said.
Brian McCants, a high school basketball coach and the father of NU freshman guard Ed McCants, said on Friday that Johnson was leaving. Brian McCants said Harry Good, a freshman who left the team during the season, had told him of Johnson’s decision several days ago.
Johnson’s younger sister declined to comment Thursday night.
“I hear Ben Johnson has left the team,” the elder McCants said. “That really surprised me. Out of those boys, he played so much.
“(Good) just said that (Johnson) didn’t like the style of offense.”
Johnson led the team in scoring his freshman year with 11.6 points a game. But former head coach Kevin O’Neill gave the Minnesota native more freedom on offense than current coach Bill Carmody allowed.
Johnson saw his minutes decrease slightly in his sophomore season, in which he was the third-leading scorer on the squad at 10.7 points per game.
He scored a season-high 24 points against Iowa in the last game of the Cats’ 2000-01 campaign, but the flashes of success Johnson displayed late in the year apparently were not enough to keep him in Evanston.
“I know he was talking about (leaving) earlier this year,” Brian McCants said.
Johnson becomes the third player to leave the team since the beginning of the recently ended season. Good and fellow freshman Casey Cortez left in the middle of the season for undisclosed reasons.
Johnson is also the 10th player in the past two years to leave the program early, including four players who transferred after Johnson’s freshman year, in which the Cats won only five games and went 0-16 in the Big Ten.
The Cats had shown significant signs of improvement this season, winning three of their last six regular-season games and doubling the previous season’s overall win total.
Johnson’s departure means that Carmody will have four scholarships at his disposal. The late signing period for college basketball begins April 15.
— Updated 4:23 CST
