Cam Was Cam, And That's Good For Carolina
CHAPEL HILL - Cameron Johnson remembers exactly where he was when North Carolina and Gonzaga met in the 2017 national championship game.
“I remember I was sitting down on the couch with my friends eating ice cream watching it,” Johnson said. “I watched the whole thing. It was a great win for Carolina and for our history here.”
Johnson was still a player at Pittsburgh at the time, but he was a Tar Heel on Saturday night playing a huge roll in UNC’s 103-90 victory over the No. 4 ranked Bulldogs at the Smith Center scoring a season-high 25 points.
He converted 8 of 12 shots from the floor, including 6 of 8 from 3-point range. Several of his jumpers were of the back-breaking variety, responding to some of Gonzaga’s many runs. Among them was a deep three with two seconds left on the shot clock late in the game. He also had a crowd-pleasing dunk in the first half.
“I just shot it,” Johnson said about the deep three that gave UNC an 81-69 lead with 8:30 remaining. “The clock ran down, you’ve got to shoot it. I felt like I had been making a couple up to that point and I just let it go.”
Another good shooting performance from Johnson means the Moon Township, PA, native has now scored in double-figures in nine of Carolina’s 10 games. He also leads the team in scoring, averaging 16.6 points.
“Cam was huge for us,” UNC head coach Roy Williams said. “How about that step-back right in front of our bench? That was a big time shot.”
The shot Williams is referring to stretched Carolina’s lead to 62-48 with 8:29 remaining in the second half. Johnson says his confidence shooting the ball hasn’t changed since his time at Pittsburgh.
“I don’t feel like it has ever really waivered,” Johnson said. “I feel like ever since the end of my redshirt freshman year, I haven’t really hesitated to let them fly.
Freshman point guard Coby White, who finished with 15 points and six assists in 22 minutes of play, was full of praise for his teammate after the statement win.
“Cam was Cam,” White said. “He knocked down big-time shots in big-time moments. He’s a big-time player, that’s what he does. He’s a shot maker and he’s not shocked by anything.”
White was also quick to point out that Johnson has been more than just a shooter for the Tar Heels and has emerged as a real leader.
“I feel like Cam is always calm, he never gets rattled by anything,” White said. “If things aren’t going right, he’s going to be that positive leader. He’s always going to be vocal.”
Although Johnson has been Carolina’s most consistent scorer - shooting 51.5 percent from the field on the year - it hasn’t just happened. The graduate senior spent a lot of time during the offseason preparing to be the player he has been so far in 2018.
“I’m just continuing to get shots up,” Johnson said. “I worked on it over the summer, I worked on it in the fall just because I shot poorly from the field and from the three last year. I was a little disappointed at that, so I wanted to turn that around this year.”
And so far, he has.