CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Welcome to the rivalry, Cam Johnson.
That was quite an opening act. In his first Duke-UNC game as a member of the Tar Heels, Johnson - a graduate transfer from Pitt - played a huge role in North Carolina's 82-78 victory over the Blue Devils. "We told him what it was like," senior Joel Berry said, "but it's just one of those things where you have to be out there to experience it."
Johnson clearly wasn't overwhelmed by the moment.
He finished with 18 points - he was 4 for 8 from 3-point range - 13 rebounds (six offensive), two assists, one blocked shot and zero turnovers. Oh, and zero coherent thoughts after he stepped onto the court. "It was honestly an unbelievable experience, really big shoutout to the fans," Johnson said with a grin. "They did a great job of not letting me hear my thoughts at any point during the game."
Johnson was at Pitt for three years - he was an injury redshirt his first season - and after graduating last spring, he decided his college hoops career needed a second act. In his time at Pitt, the coach who recruited him (Jamie Dixon) left for TCU and his new coach (Kevin Stallings) left Vanderbilt to lead the Panthers. The AD who was there when Johnson arrived left, too. It wasn't the same place.
So when he decided to transfer - a messy debacle that reflected poorly on Pitt; you can read about it here but we don't delve into it right now - one of the things that was important to him was playing in big environments. He wasn't specifically thinking about the Duke-UNC game, but he wasn't not thinking about that rivalry, either, if that makes sense.
"It comes along with coming to UNC," Johnson told Sporting News after the victory. "It's probably the biggest rivalry in college basketball, and as soon as I got here, it was made a pretty big deal to me that, you know, we don't like the people in the other color blue. I just tried to embrace it out there and enjoy it."
Johnson had 13 points in the first half, but let's skip ahead to late in the second half. The Tar Heels came out of halftime and couldn't miss; they quickly erased Duke's four-point lead (the Blue Devils led by as many as 12 in the opening 20 minutes) and held a healthy advantage most of the second half.
Duke started chipping away, though. UNC's 10-point lead fell to seven points. Then six. Then five. Then three, as the clock rolled under the four-minute TV timeout.
"We had a three-point lead and we missed about 77 shots in a row, it seemed like," Tar Heels coach Roy Williams said.
There was a sense of fear among Carolina fans. This is the same place where Duke, in 2012, stunned the Tar Heels in the waning moments when Austin Rivers drilled a 3-pointer over Tyler Zeller to give the Blue Devils a win in a game UNC controlled most of the night.
The ingredients were there again, whether UNC fans wanted to admit that or not.
Welcome to the rivalry, Cam Johnson. Kenny Williams, who knocked down six 3-pointers of his own in the game, penetrated and kicked out to Johnson on the wing. He calmly knocked down the triple with 3:11 left. A tenuous three-point lead suddenly was a margin-for-error six-point advantage.
The Dean Smith Center got loud. Very, very loud.
"I thought that was huge for us," Williams said.
The rivalry newbie wasn't done, though.
After two free throws by Berry pushed UNC's lead to eight points, Johnson found himself guarding Marvin Bagley III - the potential No. 1 pick in this spring's NBA Draft - in the paint. Johnson played solid defense and Bagley missed his attempt.
Johnson still wasn't finished. The Tar Heels milked the clock on their next possession, and with the shot clock running down, Berry launched a 3-point attempt. It missed, but Johnson scrambled to the ball and tipped it back out to Kenny Williams, giving UNC a fresh shot clock.
In that moment, those extra 20-something seconds were more important than points.
"Right place, right time," Johnson said. "Sometimes, that's just what rebounding is. I didn't feel a box-out coming behind, so just took the opportunity to tip it back out. I know Kenny likes to get to the long-rebound spot, where he's supposed to be, so it was a bit of a lucky tip and went right to him."
And just to cap off his well-rounded, impactful final stretch, Johnson fed the ball ahead to Theo Pinson in the waning moments, and Pinson - a senior - put an emphatic exclamation point on a victory in his final game at home against the rival Blue Devils.
This is the type of player the Tar Heels knew they were getting in Johnson, even though they had to wait longer than they wanted - he missed the first 11 games with a knee injury.
"He's getting his shooting touch. He's getting his legs back up under him," Berry told SN. "We're starting to learn how to play with Cam. When he was first coming back, you could see there wasn't any chemistry there. But now, with us having that lineup consistently and being able to play with him and understand that he wants to catch and shoot it quick, we deliver the ball right to him, and he knocks down the shot. He did a great job of getting to the offensive boards, which coach stresses each and every day, and he did that today."
And today wasn't a bad first rivalry impression.
"It was," Johnson said, "everything that everybody said it would be."