We continue our look at the 4 ACC players that we think are the conference’s leading POY candidates. We started with NC State’s Cat Barber and then wrote about Virginia’s Malcolm Brogdon.
Now we’re going to talk about North Carolina’s Brice Johnson, and after that we’ll give our thoughts on Duke’s Grayson Allen in a later article.
What is it about Brice Johnson that makes him a leading ACC POY candidate?
First he’s the glue to North Carolina’s 23-5 overall record and a conference leading record of 12-3. North Carolina has been a team with inconsistent guard play, which should allow opposing teams to focus more on the Heels interior players.
Johnson is still averaging nearly 17 points a game for the Tar Heels.
He’s also the ACC’s leading re-bounder at 10.6 boards per game, and is in the top 10 of the ACC in both offensive and defensive rebounds. He also leads the ACC in FG percentage shooting a tidy 62% percent from the field. That’s over 5% better than Virginia’s Anthony Gill who is 2nd in the ACC in FG percentage. Johnson is a fluid 6-9 player that can run the floor with a nice mid-range jumper.
Johnson recently was named the Naismith Trophy player of the week, so a lot of people are pay attention his fine play.
With Virginia and North Carolina facing off this weekend. Either UVA’s Malcolm Brogdon or UNC’s Brice Johnson could get a leg up on the another in the ACC POY race after that one.
