Coming into the month of November, Meechie Johnson was midway through his senior year at Garfield Heights, preparing for his final months of high school.

The former No. 2 recruit in Ohio’s class of 2021 was still recovering from a torn ACL and had not played high school basketball in nearly two years.

On Nov. 8, all of those plans for a normal senior year were erased.

Following a medical condition that ended the career of Ohio State graduate transfer guard Abel Porter, Johnson made the decision to reclassify to the class of 2020 and join this Buckeye team.

He is expected to be eligible at the beginning of the spring semester.

It was an unexpected few days for Johnson and Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann, who said he explored all possibilities following Porter’s retirement.

“We did look at a couple of different options. One of those was bringing in someone from the outside,” Holtmann said on Wednesday. “This has not been done much and we were kind of questioning if it could work, but we spent about three or four days really diving in with our compliance about what direction we could go with-- could we look at a graduate transfer, could we look at a high school senior?”

Those days of intensive research about how to find a working backup plan resulted in the idea of bringing in Johnson, who was eligible to graduate early.

So, that’s what the 6-foot-2 guard did.

Holtmann said the ideal date for an outside player to join would be “mid-December,” when the semester is over and there is an acclimation period.

It was a chaotic few days following the loss of Porter. Ohio State had no clear options and a large hole to fill on the bench.

Less than a week later, the Buckeyes have two guards behind senior point guard C.J. Walker: Johnson and the newly-eligible Jimmy Sotos, a senior transfer from Bucknell.

“I would’ve had some concerns, obviously, with Abel going out had we not been able to find another primary ball handler and depth there,” Holtmann said. “I would have felt really concerned. But I feel really good about it now. Obviously, the pandemic makes depth even more important than it has ever been.”

The NCAA ruled that winter sports athletes will receive an extra year of eligibility following this season if they choose to use it. That can only be seen as a plus for this Ohio State roster-- it gives Johnson and Sotos an entire season to adjust to the program before moving into larger roles next season.

Johnson is a borderline three/four-star recruit and was supposed to be a part of Holtmann’s best Ohio recruiting class to date. He has tumbled down the Rivals rankings due to his aforementioned knee injury but appeared fully healthy this summer playing for the Indy Heat AAU program.

Still, diving directly into college basketball is not realistic for the Cleveland product. Holtmann understands this and knows there needs to be an adjustment period for Johnson as he works his way into high-level college basketball.

“He is physically really, really healthy right now and in a really good place, but as has been mentioned, he hasn’t played competitive, organized games-- with the exception of AAU-- for a while,” Holtmann said.

This is about the future. Giving Johnson a semester more to prepare (and maybe even contribute) with this Ohio State team sets him up to become the Buckeyes’ point guard of the future.

“You know, those decisions that were made were made kind of in a long-term thinking mind, about what can prepare him for an increased role next year,” Holtmann said. “Having said that, I feel like there are real opportunities to help this team, but we wanna understand that his overall health will need to be fully evaluated.”

For an Ohio State team that appeared to be sorely lacking depth in the face of an uncertain season, the addition of a player with Johnson’s potential was certainly an injection of life.

The future is bright for the young guard.