Can Tre Johnson Cards get a March Madness Bounce?
Tre Johnson doesn’t monitor the sales of his basketball cards. Nevertheless, the highly-touted University of Texas freshman guard is flattered that everyone from Longhorn fans to sports card collectors want a card of one of the top players in March Madness.
“It means a lot knowing that people want my card,” Johnson said after Texas made the field of 68 for the NCAA Tournament. “I really don't know how much they're selling for, but just knowing that people are trying to get a Tre Johnson card or willing to spend top dollar for a Tre Johnson card, and I really haven't done much in my career yet, it means a lot.”
Johnson and the Longhorns open The NCAA Tournament with a First Four game against Xavier on Wednesday in Dayton. If Texas (19-15) advances to a first-round game against Illinois on Friday in Milwaukee, the 6-foot-6-inch wing on pace to lead the SEC in scoring as a freshman (19.8 points per game) must play a big role.
Cooper Flagg, a unanimous first-team All-American by the Associated Press on Tuesday, should be the biggest winner from the March Madness-related movement in the basketball card market. This assumes Flagg recovers from his ankle injury suffered in the ACC Tournament. Still Johnson, who NBA Draft on SI projected to be the seventh overall pick, is among a handful of players who could see their cards take off.
Johnson’s scoring ability is one of the things card collectors, investors and dealers covet in a basketball prospect.
Suppose Johnson ends the season as the SEC’s leading scorer. In that case, he’ll join Bernard King (26.4 points per game for Tennessee in the 1974-75 season), Chris Jackson (30.2 points per game for LSU in the 1988-89 season), Cameron Thomas (23 points per game for LSU in 2020-21 season) and Brandon Miller (19.1 points per game for Alabama in the 2022-23 season) as the only freshmen to pace the conference in scoring.
With a strong NBA profile and playing for a school with a large fan base, the conditions are ripe for Johnson's cards to get a boost in the coming weeks.
Johnson signed cards under a name, image and likeness (NIL) deal with Panini, so his cards aren't found in Topps’ Bowman U line of products. Johnson’s highest-selling card on record, according to vetted sales data collected and published by Card Ladder, is his 2023 Prizm Draft Picks black 1/1 autograph (#TRE), which is graded a PSA 10 and sold for $3,250 on Dec. 11, 2024.
Unlike Johnson, some of the best players in this year’s NCAA Tournament field aren’t considered high-caliber NBA prospects. Still, between Bowman U, Panini, Leaf and ONIT manufacturing cards of the tournament’s top stars, there are opportunities to pick up easily affordable cards (for example, Johnson’s last 11 non-autograph, ungraded cards went for $3.25 or less according to Card Ladder as of late Tuesday).
Auburn 6-foot-10-inch forward Johni Broome, a unanimous AP first-team All-American and the SEC Player of the Year who’s viewed as a potential late first-round pick has seen a rise in his prices as the tournament approaches. According to Card Ladder, Broome’s 2024-25 ONIT (#P-1) silver holo parallel sold Tuesday for $15, while his pink parallel sold for $25 on the same day (both were eBay sales). The last Card Ladder-vetted sale of a Broome autograph was on Monday when a PSA 8 graded copy of his Bowman U Chrome base prospect autograph (#JB) sold for $120.50 on eBay.
Like Flagg, Broome has autographs, base cards and parallels under the Bowman U Now banner. The Bowman U line has also manufactured cards featuring Purdue guard Braden Smith (Big Ten Player of Year and a first-team All-American), two AP second-team All-American selections (Marquette guard Kam Jones and Memphis guard PJ Haggerty) and four of the five third-team All-American players who are a part of March Madness (Creighton center Ryan Kalkbrenner, Tennessee guard Zakai Zeigler, Houston guard LJ Cryer and Kansas forward Hunter Dickinson).
Topps' Bowman U Now March Madness cards could streamline the process for those trying to identify the cards of tournament standouts in line to gain interest. According to the countdown clock on the Topps website, those cards will be available beginning on Thursday
Flagg’s Duke teammates, including NBA prospect Kon Knueppel, who was recognized on a Bowman U Now card for being named MVP of the ACC Tournament, could be the biggest beneficiaries of the non-Flagg related market movement. Whether or not his cards trend upward, Johnson enjoyed signing stickers for his Panini cards and is excited to see what they do in the market.
“I don't remember how many I signed, but it was a lot,” Johnson said. “It's just a blessing to have to deal with Panini so, I really wasn't worried about how long it took or how tired I was. It's just a blessing, at the end of the day.”
-1f9b5aba42acf122a9de17edfe18f6ad.jpeg "Jeff Howe")
Jeff Howe is a sports writer with over two decades of professional experience contributing to ESPN.com, Rivals.com and the Sporting News, among other publications. He currently reports on the Texas Longhorns for “On Texas Football” after covering the Longhorns for 247Sports and CBS Sports. His hobby journey started when he was 6 years old, hanging out at his dad’s card shop and collecting cards alongside his two brothers.