RALEIGH, N.C. — Last season, it was a toe that kept North Carolina' sophomore Puff Johnson from even dressing out the final 15 games. This season, a combination of a hip flexor and a sprained ankle kept him sidelined through the first 15 games.
That's just part of what made Johnson's career-high performance in the Tar Heels' 84-74 win over N.C. State on Saturday at PNC Arena special. The win means Carolina (21-8, 13-5 ACC) can finish no worse than tied for fourth in the league standings.
Johnson played a career-high 29 minutes and scored a career-high 16 points including consecutive 3-pointers in the second half. The Heels needed a solid outing from Johnson after senior forward Leaky Black hyperextended his right knee late in the first half and did not return to the game.
"He's filled with so much thankfulness that he's healthy enough to play that he's not bogged down by the noise that maybe some normal people have," UNC coach Hubert Davis said. "When you go in, how much playing time you get in, he's just so thankful that he's in and it just allows him to play free and play his best."
Johnson said his brother Cam, who played at UNC from 2017-19 and now stars for the Phoenix Suns, was also instrumental in helping him work his way back mentally from his injuries.
"He's been through injuries — he had two hip surgeries, a shoulder surgery, knee surgery — so he's been through a lot of surgeries," Johnson said. "So my big thing was leaning on him and just getting advice from him on how to stay positive and stay ready."
Johnson's breakout performance comes at a good time for Carolina. Bench production has been inconsistent after losing both forward Dawson Garcia and guard Anthony Harris for the rest of the year.
Johnson has only played double-digit minutes in six games including Saturday's win. He's still sat out more games in his career than he's appeared in for the Tar Heels, but he said not knowing when he'll play isn't an excuse for not being ready.
"You never know what day might be your day to play or what day might be yours to sit," Johnson said. "That's also a big thing that my brother has taught me is that, especially in the NBA, you get a lot of players get DNPs and whenever your number is called you have to get ready because you never know when someone's gonna get hurt or someone's going to get in foul trouble."
With Black out of the lineup for the entire second half, Johnson took over the defensive assignment of having to guard Wolkpack leading scorer Dereon Seabron. The 6-foot-8 wing helped keep Seabron without a second half field goal until the outcome was decided. Seabron was 1 for 7 in the first half and finished with 11 points, scoring all four of his second half baskets in the final 4:18 of the game.
UNC's Armando Bacot said Johnson played as physical and aggressive as he does in practice.
"He's always like that," Bacot said. "I mean, sometimes we got to actually tell them to chill out a little bit because you get a lot of tic tac fouls like me, being so aggressive. But I'm just proud of him and how he played."
Here's what we learned from the Heels' win:
Bacot too much
N.C. State tried both Ebenezer Dowuona (6-foot-11, 225 pounds) and Jaylon Gibson (6-foot-10 220 pounds) on Bacot, but neither could slow Carolina's big man.
The Heels targeted Bacot from the start — after largely forgetting about him in the second half of their win over Louisville Monday when he took just two shots. Bacot scored eight of UNC's first 11 points en route to scoring 28 points and five blocked shots.
His 18 rebounds tied Billy Cunningham for the most against N.C. State by a UNC player. Bacot became the first player in program history to have at least 25 points, 15 rebounds and five blocks.
"We knew we had the advantage inside especially with them not having Manny Bates," Bacot said. "Early on, we ran one of our screen plays at the beginning of the game kind of to see how they were guarded and then once I rolled and got position, they didn't double team me so right after that, we just knew all game we were trying to force it inside as much as we can."
Bacot's play inside helped the Heels score 44 points in the paint. It was just the fourth time this season they surpassed 40 in that category.
Bacot recorded his 22nd double-double of the season, which leaves him one shy of tying Brice Johnson for the program record of 23 set the 2015-16 season. It led Davis to again tout the junior from Richmond, Va., for ACC Player of the Year.
"It's not even close that he's ACC Player of the Year," Davis said. "His consistency and his dominance, I mean, he's putting up numbers that not nobody has done before. And so for him to continue to play the way that he has. It shouldn't even take any time to vote."
Road warriors
After back-to-back embarrassing road losses to Miami and Wake Forest last month, the Heels have quietly won four straight road games.
Carolina has shot 50% or better from the floor in two of those wins including its 51.8% showing against N.C. State. But a hidden reason for its success has been its performance from the free throw line. UNC leads the ACC in free throw percentage in conference games at 78.6%.
The Heels have been even better than their average in these four road wins making 63 of 75 attempts or 84%.
"We've played well on the road and that does give us some comfort and some satisfaction," Davis said. "Honestly, I'm just very proud of the guys that how resilient that they have been."
