Aaron Johnson's job, by his own definition, calls for him to create open shots for his UAB teammates.
Getting greedy with the ball in his hands is not the role of a point guard, according to Johnson's reasoning.
I just look for the open man so much that sometimes I pass up shots for myself,
said the 5-foot-8, 185-pound sophomore from Chicago. It's not really me being timid or me not being able to shoot the ball. I just like passing the ball so somebody else can get their points.
At times, however, that can be a problem. Johnson has taken just six shots in the past three games and missed all six. He's dished out 17 assists during that time, which is pretty good. But UAB head coach Mike Davis said that's not good enough, especially with Johnson and Channing Toney not always chipping in with a few baskets to complement the steady scoring by Robert Vaden, Paul Delaney III and Lawrence Kinnard.
Right now, you're watching the film and we're fortunate we're 9-5 with some teams playing us 5-on-3,
Davis said. We played four or five games this year where no one has guarded those two guys. You can't be at this level and have two guys on the court that nobody is guarding.
Now is not necessarily the time to be tinkering with offensive production. Davis had hoped that would be figured out by today when the Blazers open up Conference USA play against Houston (9-3) at Hofheinz Pavilion with tipoff scheduled for 7 p.m.
But the tinkering might not be that difficult considering the past performance of Johnson and Toney.
They can make plays,
Davis said. It's not like they can't score.
For Johnson, all he has to do is look back at last year's thrilling 101-99 win over Houston at Bartow Arena. It doesn't take much coaxing for Johnson to reminisce about that particular evening when his short floater over 6-foot-11 Marcus Cousin provided the winning points.
Last year I probably watched it 50-plus times,
said Johnson, who had nine points in that game.
It's just unbelievable the feeling of making that shot, see the crowd jump up, my team jump on me. It was a really good feeling.
UAB associate head coach Donnie Marsh asked Johnson to watch the tape again earlier this week. But this time, he asked Johnson to study what happened in the 39-plus minutes before the last shot and use that as a learning tool.
That game I had seven assists and no turnovers,
Johnson said. He wanted me to pay attention to the way I played defense and just the energy and the toughness and the tenacity I had in that game.
If Johnson can come close to duplicating that effort during upcoming C-USA play then UAB has a better chance to be successful. And those chances get even better if Toney can also pitch in like he did last Saturday against Savannah State when he had 10 points and nine rebounds.
Those three guys (Vaden, Delaney and Kinnard) can score any way possible,
Johnson said. Sometimes it's good for me or Channing Toney or Howard Crawford to throw in our eight or nine points. We just got to let the game come to us, that's the biggest thing. When we're open, take the shot.
Check out Irvine's blog at blog.al.com/offthevine. sirvine@bhamnews.com
