Five-star guard Tre Johnson signs with Texas men's basketball team

Rodney Terry’s dogged pursuit of Tre Johnson paid off Wednesday when the five-star shooting guard signed with the Texas men’s basketball team for next season.

The 6-foot-5 Johnson picked Texas over Baylor, according to 247Sports. Johnson is from the Dallas area and would have been the top-ranked recruit for the 2024 class in Texas but is playing his senior season at Link Academy in Missouri. He’s ranked by 247Sports as the fourth overall prospect for his class in the nation.

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Terry has roots that reach deep with Johnson. Terry was an assistant coach for Johnson’s father, Richard Johnson, at Baylor, and the Longhorns first offered the star recruit a scholarship in December 2021.

As a junior in 2022-23, Johnson averaged 21.8 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.7 assists while leading Lake Highlands to a 34-3 record and the Class 6A state championship. He converted 53% from the floor a year ago, including 42% from 3-point range, and he hit 91% from the free-throw line.

Johnson will probably have professional options in the U.S. and overseas.

The 2023 recruitment of five-star prospects proved problematic for Texas, which lost Ron Holland and AJ Johnson to the professional ranks. But those decommitments won't affect how the Longhorns recruit, Terry said last week.

"We're going to continue to recruit the best players in the country and the best players internationally as well, because we can," Terry said. "We have a brand that has the tentacles to be able to do that, so we won't be deterred by a youngster having a chance to, if he got really hot over the course of his season, have other opportunities that present themselves. You deal with that when it comes down the pike."

Johnson will join a class of recruits that includes another pair of top-50 national prospects, 6-5 guard Cam Scott and 6-8 forward Nic Codie, who both signed letters of intent with Texas last week.