Justice Johnson, a 2013 Saint Viator alumnus and former Lions basketball player, currently plays basketball at Saint Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. In her third year playing basketball at Saint. Ambrose, Justice Johnson reflects on her basketball career and offers advice to this year’s varsity team.

“Playing basketball in college is much different than playing basketball in high school and I definitely learned that right away,” said Johnson. “College basketball, like any collegiate sport. is a big commitment. We start late August with preseason workouts and conditioning. The season officially starts in October with practices and games and doesn’t end until early March depending on how the regular season goes. After games end we start postseason workouts and conditioning until the end of the school year. It’s a lot to get use to at first, but having great teammates and coaches makes it a lot easier to adjust to.”

Another difference that Johnson finds between high school and college basketball is the tempo of the game.
“The tempo is increased dramatically as well as the size of the players,” said Johnson. “I guess that’s why we work so hard in the offseason to prepare us for change.”
Saint Viator taught Johnson numerous lessons, but the most important lesson she learned was about “teamwork on and off the court,” said Johnson.

“At Saint Viator, there were a lot of changes,” Johnson said. “Whether it was coaching changes and having to learn to a new way of playing each time, or gaining and losing players each year. It taught me that if you have the support of your friends and teammates you can overcome and adapt to anything that comes across your path.”

Johnson’s favorite memory from playing basketball at Saint Viator was “all of the pasta parties or any activity we did involving food. It was great to relax and spend time with my teammates outside of practice. Basketball is actually where I met all of my closest friends from high school.”

Johnson’s advice to this year’s varsity team is to work as a team when you’re on the court instead of five individual players. It makes playing with each other easier once you figure out everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.”
Another piece of advice Johnson offered to the team this year is to remember to have fun no matter if you’re winning or losing. I don’t remember about 90 percent of the games I played during my high school career, but I remember all the fun times I had with my teammates over the years.