The coach rides Brice Johnson. Can North Carolina, too?

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — At first, Brice Johnson tried to not talk about the thing he wasn't supposed to have said.

But his coach interrupted him as he tried to deflect a question about the comment that got him benched in the first half of Saturday's game against UCLA.

"Coach got mad at him and took him out," North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. "I had my reasons. Period. The end. It's not a story."

Johnson: "I kind of used some bad language, and coach was really pissed off at me for it. So he sat me for it. It put a fire under my butt. When I got back in there, I was ready to go. I've got to learn from that."

Whatever the cause, the effect was obvious. Johnson responded with a career-high 27 points, the driving force behind No. 11 UNC's 89-76 win against UCLA at the Barclays Center. Johnson's spark helped the Tar Heels overcome a sluggish first half that saw the Bruins build a double-digit lead while shooting better than 50% from the field.

Johnson's frustrations surely echoed many Carolina fans' — those who can scream profanities outside of Williams' earshot. UCLA was scoring at will, draining threes, and the UNC offense couldn't get rolling.

Johnson sat on the bench, waiting. And waiting. For eight minutes and 34 seconds.

"I was wondering if I was going to get in the game," Johnson said. "Coach told me, he said, 'Hey, you can go sit at the end of the bench, but if you say anything else, you can go to the locker room.' I said, well, I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to sit here.

"He looked past me about four times in the rotation. They did take control of the game, but I knew, if I got another chance to go in there, I was going to be able to do what I needed to do. I wasn't going to hold back. I wasn't going to regret getting my second chance."

So he did. He put up 27 points all after the under-12.

"He's obviously a guy who shows his emotions, wears his emotions on his sleeve," UNC point guard Marcus Paige said. "He dunks it, he's flexing. He gets a foul, he'll slam the ball. He's just an outwardly emotional person. Sometimes, we feel like that's a negative thing, but it can also be a positive thing. We'd like him to monitor it a little better … but we love the passion he plays with. …

"He's a good kid; Coach knows that. He always pushes Brice for more. That's what I do. I try to get more out of Brice. He's so good. He's so talented. He can give even more than he gave tonight, which is scary — 27 and 9. He's the most talented player on our team. We just need to keep pushing him."

Paige gave an example of the way Williams rides Johnson hard, perhaps harder than he would a different player. If Johnson makes a great play on the offensive end but turns around and gives up a basket, Williams will not pat him on the back for the offensive play. That kind of pushing — knowing someone is capable of more, so squeezing them until you see it — is what has made Johnson into one of the Tar Heels' most consistent players this season.

That's not what he was last year; he'd put up monster numbers one night and be a relative non-factor the next. Now, he's scored in double-digits in every game so far this season, and he's posted six double-doubles. He set his career-high a game ago against Tulane, then set a new career-high against UCLA.

If the 6-9 senior forward can continue to play well — and respond to his coach pushing him — he may very well be the key to North Carolina's title hopes. Everyone knows Paige is a fantastic point guard, both because of the way he facilitates the offense and because of his ability to create shots for himself. Everyone knows Kennedy Meeks is a force to be reckoned with on the glass — when he's healthy, which he's not at the moment.

But the Tar Heels need Johnson to become the kind of scoring threat he was on Saturday, and the kind of post presence he was on Saturday, the rest of the season. Particularly with Meeks sidelined for a few weeks. Paige said the loss of Meeks means the rest of the team must step up its rebounding efforts and its low-post scoring.

"He's a pretty good threat," UCLA coach Steve Alford said. "He's definitely taken up the slack since Meeks has been out. This is a scary team. You look at this team and add Meeks to it, it's as good a team as we've played."

For those keeping track at home, UCLA has played then-No. 1 Kentucky and current No. 5 Kansas as well.

North Carolina has the experience and guard play that good March teams seem to require. What it needs is consistency in the post, and that's exactly what it is pushing for.

"I get on Brice and Kennedy more than anything else, there's no question about that, because of their energy level," Williams said. "I think the rest of the guys do a pretty good job of getting it up pretty high. Brice and Kennedy do it at moments. … When Brice shows some effort and gets across the lane and draws outside the lane and gets a charge or deflects a shot, the rest of the defense gets so much better because he has the ability to block some shots.

"I do think that Brice's energy level was so much better in the second half. I almost hugged him and kissed him one time, but then I realized who it was."

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