Johnson also tells the writer that she doesn't really watch WNBA or college games on TV. She says it crosses her mind that she should. She just doesn't.

"That's really true," Nichols says. "I'll text her on the weekend that Tennessee and Candace Parker are on. Then I'll see her Monday at school and ask if she watched. 'I watched for about 10 minutes,' she'll say, 'but then I had some school work to do.' "

Maybe we all should concede that already is true. That, as a freshman, Johnson coaxed two quick fouls out of Devereaux Peters, now playing for Notre Dame, and scored the first eight points of the game to scare the bejeebers out of nationally ranked Fenwick. That, again as a freshman, Johnson scored 28 points against Lykendra Johnson, now at Michigan State, and Trinity High School during the Chicagoland Holiday Challenge. And that those two games came way before Johnson had anything close to a jump shot.

Johnson, by the way, has the makings of one of those now. A jump shot, that is. She has plans for much more.

"I'm really trying to develop my outside shot and my ballhandling," she says. "I'm a lot better with my outside shot than last year. Last year, I'd always post up. I want to get to the point where I can switch up every time I have the ball and the defense never really knows what I'm going to do."

Question is, do they know now? Johnson shot 68 percent as a freshman, averaging 20.6 points and 12.2 rebounds. She does much of her stuff on the move, and she moves awfully fast. She often is the first player down the court in transition, a testament as much to her desire to be first as to her swiftness. In a halfcourt setting, she gets separation with her quickness and already has an assortment of jump hooks and other finishes with either hand.

"I'll never let anyone put me down," Johnson says. "No matter what anyone tries, I'm always going to play hard. I try to use what other teams do to my advantage. The way I look at it, they are helping me get better."

The kid who doesn't watch basketball other than from her own vantage point, turns out, is a quick study.

"She's like a sponge," Nichols says. "She's going to continue to grow as a player because of her ability to be coached."

The transformations already are evident, and startling. Retiring and shy as a freshman, Johnson draws most of the team's media attention and has emerged as the team spokesperson, without ruffling the feathers of any upperclassmen. "She deserves all the attention she gets," says Christina Fletcher, a 6-1 junior at Montini. At the beginning of last season, Nichols says Johnson "was a garbage practice player." Now? "She dominates every practice," he says.

Already, Michala Johnson seems bigger than appearances in many aspects except, maybe, physical stature. She's working on that, too. She says she eats, but just has a fast metabolism.

"I do have muscle," she says. Given her track record, you've got to believe.

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