Brooklyn native Dakari Johnson will return home when No. 3 Kentucky meets Providence Sunday night at Barclays Center.
The 7-foot Johnson was born in Brooklyn before his family moved to Kentucky and then to New Jersey, where he played at St. Patrick High School for former coach Kevin Boyle.
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it a lot,” Johnson said Friday at Kentucky. “My whole family’s coming, so it’s very rare for them to come see me play. They don’t come to see me play a lot, so I’m real excited just to go up there and play in front of them.”
Johnson is averaging 5.7 points and 4.3 rebounds for the Wildcats (6-1), who play one game annually in Brooklyn.
He is projected as the No. 28 pick in the 2014 NBA Draft in a new mock draft on the Big Lead.
“Dakari Johnson’s got great size,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said on WFAN. “He’s like the banger, the bully, yet he’s not moving his feet.”
Said Johnson : “I think [my game] is progressing each and every day. I think I’m getting at the things Coach Cal wants me to do. That’s the main thing I’m focused on right now.”
Providence is 6-1 entering Saturday’s game against Fairfield.
“Well, they beat LaSalle who is a pretty good basketball team,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said. “They beat Vandy who is a good basketball team from what I saw and Vandy had them down 16 and they came back and won. They beat Boston College, they lost to Maryland, the only game they’ve lost is Maryland and it was like a four-point game so they had a chance to win that. They run good stuff, they play hard. It’s the next step up for us. It appears as though every game has been like a stepping stone if you take out Michigan State.”
Kentucky’s trip to New York will conclude a whirlwind week in which the No. 1 (Michigan State), No. 3 (Kentucky), No. 4 (Arizona) and No. 6 (Duke) teams in the country all play in the Big Apple.
Arizona and Duke meet in the Preseason NIT championship at 6 p.m. Friday.
“I just want to play good in front of my family,” Johnson said. “They’re really excited and I’m excited too. I’m going to be ready.”
