CHAPEL HILL — NC State men’s basketball guard Markell Johnson is one of the best point guards in the ACC. A three-year starter and top-10 all time in program history in assists, the senior is unquestionably the Wolfpack’s best player. His talent is overwhelming, and in some ways, he flashes it every game.
And yet, NC State doesn’t tend to rise and fall based on Johnson’s play. The team has won games in which he’s played poorly, and it’s lost games in which he’s played well. For most basketball teams, the team goes as the best player goes. If a team’s star goes off one night, odds are the team will win. If a team’s star player struggles, you can bet a loss is probably coming.
But with Johnson, it’s different. He’s an enigma unto himself. He is, for lack of a better term, consistently inconsistent. Not just from game to game, either. From play to play, sometimes.
Take the first half of NC State’s 85-79 road loss to North Carolina Tuesday night. Johnson scored eight points in the first 2 ½ minutes of the game, electrifying the sizable crowd of NC State fans inside Dean Smith Center. The Cleveland native knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and sunk a reverse layup as he showed off “Good Markell.”
Johnson finished the first half with 10 points. Over the next 17 minutes and 35 seconds after he scored his eighth point, Johnson scored just two points. As the Wolfpack trailed by one, Johnson stole an errant pass, and with under 10 seconds to play, he nonchalantly walked the ball up the court. North Carolina guard Andrew Platek snuck up behind Johnson as he wasn’t even paying attention, stole the ball and found Leaky Black down low for a buzzer-beating layup. In the blink of an eye, NC State went from a chance to take the lead going into halftime to trailing by three.
“[Before] halftime we should have gotten the last shot,” said NC State head coach Kevin Keatts. “We had a turnover in the last 30 seconds, which certainly didn’t help us, because all the momentum was to Carolina when they went to the half.”
All too often, Johnson showcases his inconsistency at the worst times. An electric stretch of “Good Markell” is quickly followed by the frustrating play of “Bad Markell.” Johnson mirrored his seamless first-half transition from good to bad by doing nearly the exact same in the second half.
With NC State down 42-37 just a few seconds into the half, Johnson went to work, scoring six points in just over two minutes as he fueled a 15-3 Wolfpack run that put his team up seven. Johnson was getting to the free-throw line and finding the bottom of the net on layups at will, but yet again, it disappeared in an instant.
Johnson didn’t score for nearly the remainder of the game, only scoring a layup with 22 seconds to play, a stretch of nearly 16 minutes of game play without a point from NC State’s best player. To make matters worse, his lazy plays continued. With the Wolfpack trailing by five and on the ropes, Johnson committed a careless turnover. With North Carolina star guard Cole Anthony closely guarding redshirt junior guard Devon Daniels, Johnson casually bounce-passed the ball to Daniels. Anthony easily intercepted the ball and slammed it home for a dunk in transition, putting the Tar Heels up seven and firing up the Dean Dome crowd.
Inconsistency has plagued NC State all season, and at the helm of that inconsistency is Johnson’s own struggles with stringing together excellent plays. He is a borderline elite talent, capable of dropping a defender at a moment’s notice, slashing to the rim at will or knocking down a stepback 3-pointer like it’s a wide-open layup. But when he’s going extended periods without scoring, it’s going to be tough for the Wolfpack to string together wins.
