The real Brice Johnson shines in UNC's win over East Carolina

North Carolina point guard Marcus Paige sat in the player's lounge after a 108-64 blowout of the East Carolina Pirates.

He was answering a question about Brice Johnson — the Brice Johnson who scored 19 points and had a career-high 17 rebounds. The Brice Johnson who had a double-double in the first half against ECU, the first time a Tar Heel player has done that since John Henson four years ago.

"The effort on the glass, diving for loose balls, contesting every rebound and going up over three or four guys to get the ball, that’s the type of Brice we need," Paige said.

He kept going as Johnson walked in the room to field questions of his own. Paige caught his eye and continued:

"We don’t need the one that shoots fadeaways," he emphasized. "We need the one that goes at the rim and we saw a lot of that tonight."

Johnson stopped and joined the throng of reporters around Paige, faux microphone extended, waiting patiently for Paige to continue.

"You got a question or...?" Paige asked.

Without skipping a beat, Johnson replied.

"How did you feel in the first half?"

"The first half?"

"Yeah, how'd you feel?"

"I mean, felt pretty good. Got off to kind of a slow start, but our effort was there," Paige said.

Then Johnson walked off to do his own interviews. He was loose, comfortable and relaxed after the game. Because it was Brice Johnson who showed up Sunday — not Jonathan, which is his first name and quasi alter-ego.

"Brice is a really good player and Jonathan is a really frustrated person that fouls a lot and just not a person nobody needs to see," Johnson said. "Just me not fouling, be able to contribute more and be able to stay out on the court is really big because when I foul then things start lingering in my brain and I just start thinking about it a lot more and it just sticks around with me."

After getting into early foul trouble in UNC's loss to Iowa, Brice picked up just one in each half against ECU. Staying out of foul trouble early led to 13 points and 11 rebounds in the first half alone. Jonathan was nowhere to be found.

Johnson's performance comes after being motivated by coach Roy Williams in the practices leading up to Sunday's game.

"I challenged him, there’s no question about that," Williams said. "I got ticked off at him these last three days, and he was really good today."

Before the game's shootaround, Johnson said Williams talked to him about his mentality as well.

"He told me I needed to find my brain,"Johnson said. "Apparently I found it. I told him I found it in a corner somewhere, dusty. It’s been hiding from me.

"Whatever I did today, I’m going to keep doing it," Johnson said. "Because my team needs Brice to show up. Not Jonathan."

sports@dailytarheel.com