HOUSTON -- North Carolina had just finished treating the Big Ten's outright champion like its practice squad when the script, having long since been flipped, took its latest head-over-heels tumble.
A few minutes after a 101-86 win over Indiana -- when the high-octane, hot-shooting Hoosiers scored 1.21 points per possession and never got in the game -- Carolina seniors Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson were seated at the postgame podium preparing to field what would, unavoidably, be a news conference homage to the Chris Farley Show. Remember when you scored all those points? That was awesome. Really, what else was there to say?
The first question asked whether the basket looked bigger when they shot it this well, and Paige fielded it first. He said he felt good, he got a couple early shots to fall, that always helps, and so on. Then it was Johnson's turn.
"He answered," Johnson said. "He's the one making shots. I didn't really hit."
"Brice was 1-of-4 in the first half," his coach, Roy Williams, said. "So he didn't know how big the rim was."
"I can't answer that question," Johnson said. "Marcus did a terrific job."
The state of affairs at that moment -- with Paige having just fired off a battery of buckets and Johnson deferring on the topic -- was perhaps the lone surprise in the two wins that sent No. 1 North Carolina to Houston this week. It was also a surprising thing to be surprised about.
That is to say: UNC's all-time leader in 3-pointers hasn't had to make 3-pointers for the Tar Heels to win in 2015-16. His team's overall improvement has made his role less vital. This is, undoubtedly, a good thing. Paige's sudden uptick in shooting? Bonus!
"There is a big difference," Williams said. "[In the past], if Marcus didn't play well, we didn't win."
As a sophomore, Paige made 86 3s in 211 attempts. The rest of his team made 55. Paige led the Tar Heels in scoring and assists that season and the season that followed because that's what Williams needed him to do.
As a senior, Paige spent almost all of the ACC regular season unable to buy, borrow or lay away a perimeter bucket. From Jan. 9 to the closer March 5 at Duke, he made just over a quarter (25.5 percent) of his 3-point attempts. He went 0-for-16 in one three-game stretch in January. It was the kind of "slump" that exceeds the parameters of the term, that causes golfers to overhaul their swings.
And yet, save for the occasional hiccup, North Carolina rolled right along. This was due, in large part, to the emergence of Johnson, a fellow senior who will end the season with the first-team All-American honors the media had pegged Paige to win. Johnson is averaging a double-double (17.1 points, 10.5 rebounds) while converting at a 61 percent clip and gathering 29 percent of opponents' misses on the defensive end. Last week, his ho-hum 29 and 12 in the Elite Eight game against Notre Dame made him the first player since Blake Griffin to record three straight 20-and-10 outings in the NCAA tournament.
"He has been one of the three or four best players in the nation this whole year," Paige said. "That's why he's a first-team All-American and the MVP of our team. He's good for 20 and 10 every night."
That Paige can say that about a teammate, rather than being asked about the burden of putting his team's offense on his back -- or, say, if the hoop looks especially big -- is the reason Carolina has succeeded all season.
Paige has been a heart-and-soul leader and a savvy tactician on the floor, sure. In the NCAA tournament, he has made nearly 50 percent of his 3-point shots.
The difference is that instead of keeping UNC's offense, Paige's perimeter shooting sends it into the stratosphere. Instead of entering Saturday playing a vaunted 2-3 zone in a notoriously torturous arena for shooters, Paige can probe, distribute and rest easy knowing Johnson and the rest of this balanced rotation will get the job done.
He and the rest of the Tar Heels, who are two wins from a national title, seem entirely satisfied with this arrangement.
"Marcus was phenomenal as a sophomore -- phenomenal," Williams said. "He had as good a year as I've ever had a backcourt player play. And if you go in that locker room and ask Marcus if he enjoyed his sophomore or senior year more, he'll tell you he enjoyed this one more."