News broke today that Tyrone Johnson will transfer from Villanova to play out his eligibility at Carolina.  Johnson is a winter transfer and so he will not be eligible until the mid-point of next season.  He becomes the fourth “member” of the class of 2013, joining Desmond Ringer, Justin McKie, and highly-touted Sindarius Thornwell.

Let’s see what Johnson did at Villanova during his time there:

Johnson, frankly, wasn’t very good last season.  While he comes highly touted, he simply didn’t do very much positively at ‘Nova last season on the offensive end, shooting woefully and turning the ball over far too often.  One bright spot (and a place he can fill a current hole in the lineup) is his assist rate, which ranked in the top 400 in the nation for individuals.  That’s not normally saying a whole heckuva lot, but given that South Carolina only has one player currently doing as well on this year’s team (Smith), a man who can find teammates open for shots would be a welcome addition to the fold.

That said, Johnson has tons of potential.  There’s a reason he was a 4-star recruit coming out of Montrose Christian, and he’ll have a year to practice in Martin’s system before he begins playing.  Players typically make their biggest leaps between their freshman and sophomore seasons, so hopefully Tyrone will do the same.  While he didn’t light it up in his one season at Villanova, here’s hoping the Gamecocks will take a kid with tons of ability and make him shine.  However, his statistics at Villanova should be at least a cause for caution in getting too optimistic as to what we might be able to contribute.  That said (wow, I’m going back and forth in this string of sentences), welcome to the family Tyrone, and good luck to you.