It is not uncommon for a basketball player to choose a photo of himself on the court for his phone wallpaper.
Shooting. Dunking. Celebrating.
Carlos Johnson looks daily at a game photo of himself, too – showing him facing away as Grand Canyon head coach Dan Majerle talks to him with a hand on his hip.
"I was tuned in to what he was saying," Johnson said of his choice. "It felt good to have somebody of that caliber of coach, willing to work with you every day and help you as a person and as a man."
Johnson's option for scoring photos were aplenty with the player he has become at GCU under Majerle. Gravitating to a straight-shooting coach after having a keep-it-real mother, Johnson has responded to an early season role change by becoming one of the best sixth men in the nation.
The Lopes are tied for first place in the WAC halfway through conference play in large part because Johnson has blossomed after moving out of the starting lineup in November. In the past three games, the junior guard has posted the first three 20-point games of his career. He is one of six players in the nation to score 20 or more points off the bench in three consecutive games this season and is tied for 20th in Division I for total points off the bench despite having fewer bench games than the rest of the top 20.
When Johnson transferred from Washington to the GCU program that first recruited him as a Phoenix prepster, Majerle described him as "ultra-competitive," a "bull," "fearless" and a "worker." He could not have described him any better after seeing Johnson in the gym daily for months.
The 6-foot-4 guard has become the WAC's fourth-leading scorer in conference games (16.0 points per game) because he is physically difficult for opponents to stop with determined drives and reliable free throw shooting. He scores in bunches, like the 18 consecutive GCU points he scored to change momentum at California Baptist or the 67 points he has accumulated in 68 minutes over the past three games.
"Where I'm from, you have to be aggressive or you get picked on," Johnson said. "When I was younger, my older cousins always picked on me so I had to become tough at a younger age. The stuff I've been through, you can't be weak to survive. You have to have tough skin. Picked on, got beat up bad. But I kept going. I'm not stopping until I win."
Johnson grew up in Centralia, Ill., a small town 60 miles east of St. Louis. His mother, Constance Leake, gave birth to Carlos at age 15 and moved to Phoenix when he was entering seventh grade to give better opportunities to him and his younger sister Jassemine, who plays basketball at Laney College in California.
Johnson never played organized basketball until he made the seventh-grade team at Osborn Middle School, which is about 3 miles from GCU.
Constance Leake and Carlos Johnson
"OK, we got us one," Leake said she thought after seeing Johnson dominate with a raw game and a gangly, growth-spurted body.
His great aunt Bernice had encouraged him to try basketball "to turn our family around," but she passed away before he and current teammate J.J. Rhymes, who is redshirting this season, won a 2014 state championship for Phoenix Shadow Mountain High School. Johnson spent his junior year in Richmond, Calif., and his senior year with a Las Vegas high school, Findlay Prep, before playing two seasons at Washington.
A coaching change reduced his sophomore role and Johnson only looked to GCU, where the coaches were the first to recruit him and he could live with his mother while she dealt with a heart condition.
"I needed him to get back to the love and Arizona is our second home," Leake said. "Carlos needed that real, genuine, sincere love to get him back to his mojo.
"It meant the world to me that it (moving in with her) was his focus."
Johnson brought new dimensions of toughness and shot creation to the team. He gives great effort, and only his scoring overshadows his on-ball defense and rebounding. That is become he has been GCU's most consistent weapon, scoring in double digits off the bench for eight consecutive games.
"He knows what his role is – to come in and score," Majerle said. "He's gotten better with picking and choosing to where he's not out of control. He's taking care of the ball. He's facilitating and making the right plays and passes. He has done that really well, which makes him even harder to guard."
Johnson scores as if he is playing pop-a-shot, leading the WAC in points per 40 minutes (26.7) during conference play and ranking third (22.6) for all games.
Even though his scoring led GCU to its fifth consecutive victory Saturday, there was a disgruntled fan behind the GCU bench. Leake traveled to Bakersfield to give Johnson some of the tough love that she loves to see him get from Majerle.
"We've sacrificed a lot for him to be in the best position to win," Leake said. "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing. You have to work. You have to be mentally prepared. I don't play with Carlos at all. I'm not one of those parents who says, 'Oh, my son is the best.' He could have a 20-plus point game and I'm talking about that turnover."
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