Florida Basketball: Keyontae Johnson gets honorary start vs Kentucky

Gators forward Keyontae Johnson pays emotional tribute to Florida basketball

Tonight we got to see an extremely emotional moment, with Florida basketball forward Keyontae Johnson.  Johnson returned tonight, after not having played since the end of 2020 when he would collapse on the court in-game.  Keyontae has played a total of 71 games in his career for the Gators (72 including tonight) and started 55 of which.  The 2020 First-team All-SEC member has been great for the Florida Gators over the span of his career, which we will cover later in this article.

With his return tonight, Keyontae was given the honorary start by Mike White.  This allowed him to pay tribute to the Gators by kissing the logo, waving to fans, and hugging various members of the staff.  For those who witnessed Johnson collapse in 2020, they realize how amazing this moment was to witness, and for him to be back on the court in any capacity.

Career with Florida basketball

As the announcer mentions in the first video, we may never know how great Keyontae Johnson could have been.  Johnson was very solid in his first two full seasons, and seemingly was only getting better each year.  Unfortunately, his health condition took that away from him, however, he has had the chance to be a player-coach since he was healthy in December 2020.  He was an effective player in the paint and was very solid defensively, which allowed him to produce on both ends of the court for Florida basketball.  A good example of such was his game against St.Joes in 2019, while not a premier opponent, he had a very solid game overall.

Over his career, he also had very solid statistics across the board.  He was the starter in every game for the Gators in the 2019-2020 season, starting in all 31.  This was only the beginning of an extremely promising career it seemed, as he would improve in nearly every single important category from his freshman to sophomore season.  His statline for 2019-2020 included the following:

• 14.0 points on 54.4% from the field, 38% from 3, and 76.8% from the stripe
• 1.6 assists, 7.1 total rebounds per game (5.4 defensive, 1.7 offensive)
• 1.2 steals per game, 0.3 blocks, and an average of 31.3 minutes per game

To even begin to cover the number of accolades he had in various forms would take a while and a very long list.  He was top 10 in the SEC in many of the major advanced statistics categories, such as offensive and defensive shares, player efficiency rating, true shooting percentage, etc.  This also applied to a few of the more natural statistics such as 2-pointers made (2019-2020 season), 2-point field goal percentage, field goals, defensive rebounds, field goal percentage, and more.  Checking the “Appearances on Leaderboards, Awards, and Honors” section of the SportsReference CBB page shows this and shows how truly amazing he was as a player.  He appears in the top 20 of 35 different statistical categories over his two seasons in college, which is truly impressive.

While it is unfortunate that we may never know how amazing Johnson could have been, the tribute to Florida basketball was amazing nonetheless.  Keyontae should be proud of what he accomplished with the Gators, and it was great watching him progress as a player in his first two seasons.