North Carolina guard Marcus Paige (5) speaks to the media in preparation for the NCAA Final Four at the NRG Stadium in Houston, TX on Thursday, March 31, 2016. (Christine T. Nguyen/North State Journal)

Marcus Paige keeps it poppin’

HOUSTON — Marcus Paige has been asked a lot of questions in his four years at North Carolina — about his prolific second halfs, his relationship with teammate Brice Johnson, his previous shooting woes and his recent resurgence.

But Thursday morning, I threw him a bit of a curveball during the first day of Final Four availability at the NRG Center and asked about popcorn.

It’s not completely random, I promise.

Leaving a press conference in Chapel Hill before the regional round of the NCAA Tournament in Philadelphia, Paige joked about ties between his home state of Iowa and his love of popcorn.

He might’ve been kidding, but it’s only natural that Paige might like to pop a couple kernels occasionally. Iowa is the top producer of corn in the United States, and according to the state’s agriculture department, Iowa farmers harvested 13.3 million acres of the crop in 2014.

And because I’m a popcorn fanatic, I wanted to know the degree of Paige’s devotion to the snack.

Turns out, he’s a pretty big fan, too.

“My two weaknesses are double-stuffed oreos and popcorn,” Paige said. I don’t know how it started or why.”

Sometimes when he’s sitting in his room in Chapel Hill, Johnson sniffs a smell wafting up through the house he shares with Paige and a couple of their friends.

It’s a strong one that snakes its way through their house frequently, most often late at night.

Johnson shakes his head. It’s just Paige downstairs, popping another bag of Butter Lovers popcorn.

“It’s something I notice all the time,” Johnson said. “Every time I look, he’s got it. Sometimes i’ll be sitting in my room and I’ll just smell butter. And I’m like, I already know who it is. Marcus is eating popcorn. That’s his favorite snack. It’s what he likes to do at night.”

Most of the time he just throws a bag in the microwave and a couple of minutes later: heaven.

But sometimes, Paige switches it up and pulls out a pot, some oil and a bag of kernels for a stovetop special.

“It’s easy to just pop a little butter lovers in the microwave for two minutes,” he said. “When I’m at home, I sometimes make stovetop popcorn.

“My mom (taught me). You just put it on the stove and then it pops. It’s one of the simpler things. I’m not very good at cooking.”

There’s a joke here about Paige’s 3-point cooking on the court being better than his skills in the kitchen, but I’ll spare you.

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