Kannard Johnson
Kannard Johnson ( * June 24, 1965 in Cincinnati, Ohio ) is a former American professional basketball player. After Johnson could not prevail in the most highly endowed professional league NBA, he went to Europe, where he celebrated his greatest successes in Germany with Bayer Leverkusen. With the colors townspeople he brought in four years seven of the eight possible national title.
Career
Johnson moved to his high school graduation to study at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green in the south adjacent to Cincinnati, Kentucky. There he played with Tellis Frank for the Hilltoppers called basketball team in the Sun Belt Conference of the NCAA Division I. Twice you could qualify in 1986 and 1987 for the national finals of the NCAA and there reach the second round. In 1986 they lost against the regional rival, the then top-seeded Wildcats of the University of Kentucky, and a year later to eventual runner-up, the Orangemen of Syracuse University. Johnson is still one of the best scorers in the history of the Hilltoppers and scored in his collegiate career 1,738 points.
After Johnson was selected by 1987 in the second round by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Draft, he passed for this team of four bets in the NBA before the club sacked him at the end of 1987 his contract. After playing in the summer league United States Basketball League ( USBL ) for the last year's champion Miami Tropics, he went to the highest Italian league A1 newly promoted Cantini Riunite from Reggio Emilia. After one season, he moved to Germany to runner- TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen in the National Basketball League, where he played with his compatriot Clinton Wheeler. Under the new coach Dirk Bauer man the club had also gathered a collection of German national team players, with the team's to beat in the next four seasons nationally hardly. Except for the Cup win in 1992 they picked all the national title and was until 1993 a total of four times German champions, including three as a Double. The quarter- final round of the national champion - European Cup in 1991, played in a group stage, where they finished sixth and the Final Four tournament missed comparatively scarce. A year later, the competition was held as Europe League with two groups in the second round, which allowed for the first time participate more teams from one country. In 1992, seven victories had not passed the quarter-finals for collection in 14 games, one failed in 1993 after eight wins because of the poorer direct comparison to the quarter-finals of Europe's most important club competition. Then the club exchanged its U.S. duo Wheeler and Johnson and replaced it with Tom Garrick and Abdul Shamsid - Deen.
Johnson began the season 1993/94 the Greek club Athlitiki Enosi Konstantinoupoleos (AEK ) from Athens in the A1 Ethniki. There, however, he acted just weeks before he returned to his home country and took part in the Continental Basketball Association ( CBA) for different clubs. In the summer he was again united in the USBL for the Jacksonville Hooters with his former Leverkusen teammates Clinton Wheeler. Together they won the 1994 championship of this league. Subsequently, Johnson played another season in Serie A1, but where he came only seven missions for the club from Montecatini Terme. The club was relegated after just four wins in 32 games as a Table from. In the USBL in 1995 Johnson played for last year's final opponents Trojans from Atlanta, which reached the final again and this time the Florida Sharks were inferior. In the season 1995/96, Johnson was again active in the CBA for the Connecticut Pride, which had emerged from the Albany Patroons.