LEXINGTON, Ky. — Corey Frazier is back in a familiar spot at Overtime Elite, the Atlanta-based program that has emerged as a lucrative prep basketball pathway for future college and professional players.

As the head coach of OTE’s RWE team during the 2023-24 season, Frazier — a former pro-skills trainer at OTE who played college basketball at Saint Louis — directly oversaw the development of two class of 2024 Kentucky basketball commits: center Somto Cyril and forward Karter Knox.

Of course, offseason developments meant that neither Cyril nor Knox ended up in Lexington following their OTE careers. After former UK coach John Calipari left Kentucky for Arkansas, Cyril was released from his national letter of intent with the Wildcats and will instead play at Georgia this season. Knox, who never signed binding paperwork to play at UK, decommitted and followed Calipari to Arkansas.

Despite UK’s seismic offseason coaching change from Calipari to Mark Pope, Frazier is back in the same position ahead of the new OTE season, which begins in November: He’s once again helping develop a future Kentucky basketball player before he arrives in Lexington.

The player in question is five-star UK commit Jasper Johnson, a 6-foot-4 guard and former Woodford County High School standout who is finishing his prep career at OTE after spending his junior season at Link Academy in Missouri.

Johnson will play on Frazier’s RWE team for his lone season at OTE. This means Frazier — who played in 77 career games as a guard at Saint Louis, including a second-round loss in the 1998 NCAA Tournament to Kentucky’s “Comeback Cats” national title team — is once again in communication with the UK program as he helps get Johnson ready for college.

“The biggest thing is his ability to score the basketball, being a deep-ball threat,” Frazier told the Lexington Herald-Leader last week about Johnson following OTE’s annual fall combine, which took place in front of around 90 college coaches and NBA scouts, along with media members. “There’s things that I see with him that are flowing, and things that we see that we can help him to reach the next level (at): getting downhill, finishing in the paint.”

Frazier added that he recently sent a text message to Jasper’s father, Dennis Johnson — a former Harrodsburg, UK and NFL football player who is now Woodford County’s head football coach and athletic director — asking for some of Jasper’s football highlights to help instill a tougher mindset in Jasper when it comes to his basketball physicality.

Kentucky’s offseason coaching change meant that Frazier and other OTE coaches had to establish new relationships with Pope and his UK coaching staff. Calipari had quickly become a familiar face at OTE, with ex-Cat Rob Dillingham joining the aforementioned Cyril and Knox as players from the program that UK had successfully recruited.

When speaking to the Herald-Leader last week, Frazier broke down a recent conversation he had with Pope last Monday that went on for so long that Pope had to end the call in order to go run a Kentucky practice.

“It’s about making sure that we tap into the things that (Pope) wants and how they’re going to play (Johnson) there,” Frazier said. “So, we’re taking notes and writing it down so we can make (Johnson) aware of what that’s going to look like, but more importantly, have him prepared once he gets there.”

“We were straight in line. Everything that (Pope) was saying about what he wanted to see Jasper do is the exact same thing we want to see ourselves,” Frazier added. “It was refreshing to hear him say that, and make sure that ‘alright, we’re on the same page.’ I wanted to hear from him the details of what he really wanted to see so we can dive into that. That’s going to be part of (Jasper’s) development plan.”

The early returns from Johnson’s time at OTE have been eye catching. In a preseason victory against Wilson Academy (Georgia) last week, Johnson went off for 27 points, seven rebounds, two assists and two steals, with no turnovers.

OTE coaches prepare Jasper Johnson for Kentucky career

OTE bills itself as a 24/7 basketball destination, where development for the next level takes precedent over anything else.

And that’s exactly the way Frazier framed things when discussing how he plans to approach the upcoming season with Johnson and other RWE team members.

In addition to Johnson, several other RWE players will commit to college in the months to come, including three-star center Jackson McVey and four-star center Tee Bartlett.

Once those players make their college choices, you can expect Frazier to also be in frequent communication with their future coaches about how to best prepare them for their respective college environments.

During their conversation last week, Frazier said Pope initially told him that he understood that winning came first for RWE, before player development.

Frazier stopped the new Kentucky coach mid-sentence.

“’We’re more worried about these guys being prepared for the next level than we are winning,’” Frazier said he told Pope. “We feel like if we take care of all the little things and do all the little things that’s needed per player, then when they get (to the next level) that’s a win for us. When you get to where you’re going, when you get on the floor, that’s my win. We’re not driven on trying to win a championship. My job is to develop these guys. That’s the reason why the kids are here. So we’ve got to stay true to that.”

RWE team includes both Jasper Johnson and Taylen Kinney

Early in his interview with the Herald-Leader, Frazier was reminded that Johnson isn’t the only Kentucky native set to suit up for his RWE squad this season.

Johnson will be joined in the RWE backcourt by Taylen Kinney, a 6-foot-1 class of 2026 prospect who was previously an all-state performer at Newport High School.

“Ha! I’ve got two,” Frazier said with a big smile when reminded of this.

While Frazier is just getting started working with Kinney at OTE, this player-coach relationship has already been well established.

“I’ve known Taylen since he was in the seventh grade. His dad coached with All-Ohio Red back in the day and they were one of the first AAU teams I brought into OTE for a visit and I saw him back then,” Frazier said. “I had no idea he was going to hit his growth spurt that quick and then grow into the player that he is right now.”

Regardless of what might come in the future with Kinney’s recruitment, it appears a near certainty that Kentucky’s ties to OTE will continue.

This means Pope and his staff will be keen observers of what Frazier and other OTE coaches do to help mold the next generation of college basketball players.

“I told (Pope), ‘Feel free to check in with me whenever you want to.’ But I also want to be able to hit him up frequently on what I’m seeing to continue the path of staying on the same page,” Frazier said. “What we need to do with (Johnson), we’re using that for other guys … They may not go to Kentucky, but at least we learn different things and different avenues of what we can use for resources to help guys. Most importantly, our job is to get these guys ready.”

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