It’s a Thursday morning in late August 2018, and the television hanging on the wall of Ben Johnson’s office inside Xavier University’s Cintas Center is displaying a grainy, unfocused basketball game.

It's Game 4 of the 2000 NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Indiana Pacers.

When asked about it, Johnson matter-of-factly replies, “You never know when you’re gonna see something.”

Johnson, the second assistant coach that Xavier head coach Travis Steele hired to his staff, is a basketball addict.

It’s an addiction without downside.

Dave Thorson laughs when he hears that Johnson was watching an 18-year-old basketball game. Thorson, who's now an assistant coach at Colorado State, coached Johnson at DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis.

"He's always been such a student of the game," Thorson told The Enquirer. "He was a great player but he wasn't a guy that had NBA athletic talent, he was a great player because he understood the game and he understood what needed to be done in certain situations. I think that's made him an even better coach.

"Ironically, I told his dad when he was a senior in high school, I said, 'Someday, I'll probably work for Ben.' It wouldn't shock me at all if that happened."

High school was where Johnson realized that someday he wanted to get into coaching.

"When I got done playing, you're always gonna have the bug to play, you could be 60 years old, you're always gonna want to play," said Johnson, who played college basketball at the University of Minnesota and spent the last five years as an assistant with the Golden Gophers. "There were a couple other things I explored but then I was given an opportunity with a guy named Brian Gregory, who recruited me out of high school and was the coach at Dayton."

After one season at Dayton as a graduate assistant, Johnson was hired as a full-time assistant for two years at what was then the University of Texas-Pan American, then he spent four years at Northern Iowa, one year at Nebraska, then the last five at Minnesota.

More: 'God has already ordered your steps': How Jonas Hayes ended up a Xavier basketball coach

More: Dante Jackson's journey home to Xavier hoops: 'A lot of people would have given up'

More: Xavier legend David West retires from professional basketball

Putting a coaching staff together is a lot like fitting together the pieces of a puzzle.

So, after Steele hired Jonas Hayes, his focus turned to the next piece.

"The first conversation I had with Ben was right after I met with Jonas," said Steele. "I was in the airport ... that was the first time I'd talked to Ben.

"I don't talk to a lot of guys on the phone. I've known him from the road. I know his reputation. My brother was the head coach at Illinois so he knew Ben really well and so did his assistant coaches."

Steele's brother, John Groce, advised him to take a look at Ben.

"I said, 'That's a good one, that's a good name.' In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, 'He's from Minneapolis, played at Minnesota, has been coaching at Minnesota the last five years. Probably not likely, I don't know if I'll be able to get him, but it's worth a shot.'

"I got him on the phone and I thought we really hit it off right away, we kind of think the same way and I could tell his personality was a little different than Jonas' – in a good way – he's a little bit more calculated.

"You could tell right away he's got a basketball mind, which I was excited about."

Steele talked to college coaches, high school coaches, AAU coaches, and he even reached out to former Xavier standout JP Macura, who's from Minnesota.

"JP said, 'Man, he's really good,' JP's mom and dad both loved him," Steele said. "He's another guy, he's been coaching a long time and I've never heard a bad word about him."

Then, it became a matter of styles.

"I started looking at what position did Ben play? What's he worked with basically his entire college coaching career? He's worked with perimeter players, wings, he's worked with guards and he played that position, so I thought this kind of fits with Jonas," said Steele.

On top of that, Johnson has recruited a lot of the Midwest, which complements Hayes' recruiting foothold in the Southeast.

Steele and Johnson connected so well over the phone, Steele said, "I never interviewed him in person. We have a lot of mutual friends and they all said he would be a home run."

A new challenge can be invigorating. It's not that Minnesota had gotten old or stale, Johnson said.

"I think sometimes you just look for new challenges and not only is this is a new challenge but it's a challenge that you can do at an overall top-10 program in the country if you look at the last 15 years," said Johnson. "I think it gives you a little more juice ... there is something about new that brings some life to you, the juice is flowing and the excitement is real."

Like Steele, Johnson felt a connection over the phone.

"It's a humbling feeling to know that a program with this tradition would want to reach out and have that much interest in you. I think the other thing that really put it over the top was the connection I had with Travis over the phone," Johnson said. "I'm at the point in my career where I wasn't just gonna leave for anything. I'd been presented stuff whether it was a head coaching position or other assistant spots that for whatever reason I wasn't gonna do, so it wasn't like I was anxious to get out of there.

"I credit Trav. We had a really good connection. I think that's important ... whenever you make a move you've gotta go somewhere where you fully believe in what they're selling otherwise it's gonna be hard for you to sell it."

Johnson's appreciation of the game is his trademark. He wears it on his sleeve. It's evident in the way he speaks about the game. It's an appreciation that blossomed in high school under Thorson.

High school kids are impressionable. They can just as easily pick up the wrong habit as the right one.

Back then, Johnson's interests were mature. He noticed how much Thorson cared. When his coach spoke, he listened, and the stories he heard and the things he learned captivated him in a way he still remembers today.

"Seeing how he related with our team and how competitive he was even in practice," Johnson said. "He had old recruiting stories and college stories - all that stuff drew my interest and was really intriguing to me. Hearing when he recruited Chris Webber ... all these guys he had been around and all these experiences and everything that basketball had given to him, but also seeing how he helped guys that I played with and impacted their life, I think that was pretty cool.

"I was always like, 'This (coaching) is my way of being able to give back. I think there's a lot of guys that are like me that weren't able to go pro and play in the NBA but I think being able to be an example for some of those younger guys and help other people out was something I thought long and hard about."

Xavier was an easy place to be excited about, Johnson said.

"People always say this place is built to win or that place is built to win and I kind of knew what they meant by that but it wasn't until here where I realized now I know what it means when some place is built to win," said Johnson. "I fully believe that Xavier, through all the head coaches and assistant coaches and players, it's to the point where this place is built to win and now it's our job to put the right pieces together and keep it moving forward."