Kenny Johnson (basketball)

Kenny Johnson is an American basketball coach who is currently an assistant coach for Georgetown. He formerly was an assistant coach at Rhode Island, and before that an assistant coach with La Salle and the Louisville Cardinals under former head coach Rick Pitino.

College coaching career
On April 21, 2014, after serving for two seasons as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for Tom Crean at Indiana University, Johnson was hired as an assistant coach for Louisville under head coach Rick Pitino, one year after Louisville won the NCAA Division 1 men's basketball tournament. Johnson was placed on administrative leave at Louisville shortly after the 2017–18 NCAA Division I men's basketball corruption scandal and FBI investigation into the college basketball program in September 2017 that also resulted in the firing of Pitino, athletic director Tom Jurich and assistant coach Jordan Fair. Johnson was officially fired in November 2017.

La Salle University hired Johnson in May 2018 to serve under the new men's basketball coach Ashley Howard. On May 11, 2020, after being named in a Notice of Allegations regarding providing benefits to a recruit at Louisville, Johnson was fired from La Salle.

Johnson next was an assistant coach at Rhode Island under head coach Archie Miller from 2022 to 2024. On April 15, 2024, Georgetown announced that it had hired Johnson to serve as an assistant coach under head coach Ed Cooley for the 2024–2025 season.

Personal
Johnson attended Oxon Hill High School in his hometown of Oxon Hill, Maryland, where he was named Science and Technology Student of the Year in 1994. He had his playing career cut short by several knee injuries during his second season of varsity basketball. The recipient of a Benjamin Banneker Scholarship, he went on to attend the University of Maryland-College Park, where in 1999 he earned his degree in cellular biology, molecular biology, and genetics. After graduation, he worked as a protein chemist and molecular biologist at Human Genome Sciences in Rockville, Maryland.

Prior to becoming a college assistant, Johnson was very active in the Maryland high school coaching circuit, holding assistant positions at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt (2002-2006) and Dr. Henry Wise High School in Prince George's County (2006-2007). He also held an assistant position at Paul VI Catholic High School, then located in Fairfax, Virginia, from 2007 to 2011.

While a high school coach, Johnson also held the position of vice president/assistant director of basketball operations, overseeing travel and logistics, for the well-known Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Nike Team Takeover program for six years. During that time, he also served as head coach of the program's 16U (age-16-and-under) team. During his tenure, the program produced at least 53 NCAA Division I players and four future National Basketball Association players.