Meechie Johnson is transferring from Ohio State to South Carolina – again.
Johnson played in just 10 games for the Buckeyes before sitting out the rest of the season for personal reasons. He averaged 9.1 points, 2.7 assists, 2.5 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game.
Johnson made merely 35.6 percent of his field-goal attempts, 35.7 percent of his 3-pointers and 50.0 percent of his free throws. He had mediocre 27/23 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Johnson spent his first two years of college at Ohio St. from 2020-22, then transferred to South Carolina (2022-24), back to Ohio St. and now back to Columbia again.
This time around, he chose the Gamecocks over Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt and Mississippi St. Johnson reportedly visited Vandy this past weekend.
“I just wanted to be home, man,” Johnson told The State on Tuesday afternoon. “I wanted to go out the right way. I felt I owed it to the fans, owed it to the community. I just thought that it was the right thing to do.”
Johnson has admittedly dealt with anxiety and depression in the past, but it had never kept him off the court. It was different this year, though.
“Doctors said, ‘Hey, you need to prioritize your mental health right now and get back to basketball when you’re mentally better,’” Johnson told The State. “I’m still going through rehab now, still getting mentally better — way better than where I was a couple months ago.”
Johnson enjoyed his best career season with the Gamecocks in 2023-24 when he was a second-team All-SEC selection. He averaged 14.1 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.9 APG.
Johnson had a 95/53 assist-to-turnover ratio, hit 78.8 percent of his free throws and led South Carolina to its first NCAA Tournament berth since the program’s 2017 Final Four run under Frank Martin.
Johnson is the third transfer portal addition to Lamont Paris’s 2025-26 roster. Six USC players have jumped into the portal, so the Gamecocks are going to have a much different look after a disappointing campaign that ended with a 12-20 straight-up record and a 14-16-2 against-the-spread mark.
The other portal imports include Chris Essandoko and Treysen Eaglestaff, who was a Summit League first-team all-conference selection at North Dakota. Eaglestaff scored a Summit League record 51 points in the Fighting Hawks’ 85-69 win over South Dakota St. in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament.
In 33 games for North Dakota, Eaglestaff averaged 18.9 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.1 steals per game. The 6-foot-6 shooting guard made 35.9 percent of his treys and 79.4 percent of his free throws.
Eaglestaff averaged 14.4 PPG as a sophomore in 2023-24.
Essandoko started seven times in 22 games at Providence this season. He averaged 4.3 points and 3.9 RPG.
South Carolina has seen Cam Scott, Jamarii Thomas, Nick Pringle, Austin Herro, Zachary Davis and Arden Conyers enter the portal.
As of today, the Gamecocks have five returning players. The hope is that star power forward Collin Murray-Boyles will come back, but he’s projected by many to be a first-round pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
In addition to the three transfers, Paris has four incoming players from high school. Eli Ellis is a consensus four-star recruit, while EJ Walker earned a four-star grade from ESPN only.