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CHAPEL HILL – Puff Johnson is healthy, and his coach is quite excited. This is somewhat new terrain for Johnson, a 6-foot-8 wing from the Pittsburgh suburbs.
First, he didn’t have a typical offseason in 2020 because of COVID, and then last summer, Johnson was overcoming a toe injury that ended his first season at North Carolina in January before suffering a hip flexor, which further shelved his basketball activities.
But now, coming off an NCAA Tournament in which he played 67 minutes and twice scored 11 points in the Tar Heels’ six-game run to the national championship game, which it lost to Kansas, Johnson is healthy and doing everything he’d previously missed out on as a college basketball player.
“A lot has (previously) been like rehab, so this has been the first full summer that Puff can work out,” UNC Coach Hubert Davis said during his summer press conference inside the Smith Center last Wednesday. “And we can be out there on the floor in individual workouts and work on things, not from a rehab standpoint.”
Johnson missed the first 15 games last season, and since he gets the COVID year back, there was talk he might just take a redshirt to spend the year fully getting healthy and stronger. But he played well in stints upon his return, and he never looked back. Good thing for UNC, too. Anthony Harris was ruled unavailable by the school, and Dawson Garcia left for home before January came to an end. So Johnson was needed.
He played 249 minutes in 24 games averaging 10.4 minutes, 3.1 points, 2.0 rebounds, with 11 assists, seven steals, and four blocked shots. He converted 28 of 61 shots from the floor, which is 45.9 percent, including 6-for-26 (23.1 percent) from three-point range. He as 13-for-18 from the free throw line.
When asked to play extensive roles, like in a win at NC State when Leaky Black was injured, or in the national championship game when Black had foul issues, Johnson came through. He had 16 points and five rebounds versus the Wolfpack, and 11 and seven against the Jayhawks.
“It’s just a huge benefit for Puff finally being healthy and us just being able to get out there on the floor and get better…,” Davis said. “He’s going to build off the performance that he had in the national championship game, and he’s just going to continue to get better and better.”
Johnson isn’t the only Tar Heel whose medical status is a conversation piece this offseason.
Senior forward Armando Bacot, who became a national name during Carolina’s run in March, badly injured his ankle in the Final Four win over Duke, and exacerbated it late in the championship game versus Kansas.
While the 6-foot-10 rebounding machine has been out and about taking full advantage of NIL opportunities, his ankle is slowly healing.
“Armando told me (earlier in the week) that he’s ‘77 percent’ in terms of his ankle,” Davis said, smiling and starting to chuckle. “The percentages these kids give out are hilarious… It’s getting a lot better.
“Me personally, having gone through ankle sprains, you’re better but you don’t feel like a hundred percent for maybe five months. So, every day he’s playing pickup, he’s doing individual workouts. But the overall strength – (23) percent of the strength is missing for Armando. But he’s continuing to get better.”
Bacot led the Tar Heels in scoring at 16.3 points and rebounding with 13.1 per contest. He also blocked 65 shots, shot 56.9 percent from the floor, and converted 67 percent of his free throw attempts. He also tied Navy’s David Robinson (1985, 1986) for the all-time single-season record with 31 double-doubles. He grabbed nearly 100 more rebounds during the season than any other Tar Heel in history.
Incoming freshman Jalen Washington was a top-30 player in every ranking system that covers prep basketball before suffering a knee injury last fall that forced him to miss his final season of high school.
The 6-foot-9 Indiana native told THI last month he will be ready for full-on contact hoops by August, which Davis noted Wednesday. He also discussed where Washington is in his rehab process.
“Jalen can do everything except five-on-five,” Carolina’s coach said. “So, he’s doing all the individual workouts, five-on-0, doing running, doing strength and conditioning. He’ll be able to do five-on-five right at the beginning when everyone comes back before the fall semester.
“I’m really excited about him. I know he got to miss his senior of high school, but he’s a really talented player and I’m really excited about playing him out there on the floor. He’s going to be great next year.”
And Washington will be healthy. So will Johnson as will Bacot. And for UNC basketball, those are huge positives.
