Redshirt senior Jon Smith has no interest in defining what his legacy is, or the legacy of his class.
The forward said it’s something that isn’t up to him.
“I don’t really pay too much attention to the legacy,” Smith said. “I really don’t know what the legacy would be because in four years, they might not even mention us anymore and we’ll be all forgotten about.”
Smith, Travis Wilkins, T.J. Hall, Ricardo Johnson and Nick Kellogg are part of the winningest class in Ohio basketball history, finishing their careers with 97 wins to go along with an NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen appearance and a co-Mid-American Conference regular season championship.
What matters to Smith, though, is the impact that the time he spent at Ohio had on him.
“I enjoyed my time at OU and everything I was able to do,” Smith said. “I really enjoyed my teammates. I learned a lot, I grew as a man, and that’s the legacy for me. It’s what I’ve learned and what I’ve been through at OU with my teammates and the guys I came in with.”
The final year Smith and his teammates spent in Athens was one filled with almost every player on the roster gathering dings and dents at some point in the season.
Whether it was Johnson’s broken leg, Hall’s constant battle against the injury bug, Wilkins’ bum shoulder or the myriad injuries felt by the underclassmen, Kellogg said it was by far the most adversity the team had faced in his four seasons in Athens.
“This year, it was just like everybody got hurt,” he said. “This was definitely the toughest year with injuries. … There were times in the locker room when we looked at each other like, ‘Damn, we have another game.’”
Kellogg was one of the few players who avoided the injury bug, save for a minor sprain against Bowling Green on Jan. 22. But he still couldn’t escape another burden that weighed on him.
“For me, it was more of a mental thing,” Kellogg said. “Just kind of being worn down by all the minutes and all the games. … Sometimes I felt like there was a weight on my back because I was the only healthy guy and I was playing a lot of minutes.”
While Kellogg was often the leader on the floor, Johnson was led off of it after fracturing his leg against UNC-Asheville on Jan. 4, effectively ending his season.
The what-ifs of his final season could have been answered had he remained healthy, but Johnson tries to not let them cloud what he calls a good college experience.
He’s continued to hang around the team, attending practices and games and spending time off the court with his teammates, trying to set an example for how the underclassmen should approach the rest of their college careers.
“Do what you have to do and live it up to the fullest,” Johnson said as his advice to his teammates. “Don’t have any regrets. If you’re not doing anything, get to the gym. You never know what can happen to you. It can just be taken away in the snap of a finger.”
Johnson said that as much as he wanted to play toward the end of the season, his body just wouldn’t have been able to handle it.
“My mom was telling me I was ready to play and that I could’ve gone out there and played,” Johnson said. “But physically, I just wasn’t ready. I feel like (last Tuesday), I’d be able to play a little bit. I mean, my conditioning’s not up there, but maybe a couple minutes here or there.”
Looking to the future of the program, Kellogg sees junior guards Stevie Taylor and Javarez “Bean” Willis as players who could potentially step up as leaders under the direction of new coach Saul Phillips.
“Any time you have two point guards that are as capable as they are and that do things the right way, that’s a means for leadership,” Kellogg said. “That’ll be somebody who the younger guys and the newcomers can look up to on how to do things.
“(Taylor and Willis) practice hard every day, are always positive and always have good things to say as well.”
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