UNC head basketball coach Hubert Davis joined 97.9 The Hill on Thursday, June 9, to speak with Aaron Keck about his eventful first season and how things are going so far this offseason.
This is a transcript of their conversation, lightly edited for clarity. To listen to the full interview, click here.
Aaron Keck: First of all, thank you so much for being with us today. It’s fantastic to see you. I know you’ve got an offseason that’s just as busy as the regular season.
Hubert Davis: First of all, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure and an honor to spend a little bit of time with you guys this afternoon. It’s been a great offseason. Our guys, I was really proud of them. They finished off the spring semester academically just fantastically and for us being away from campus pretty much the last month of the season, for them to still be able to be at the best that they could be in the classroom.
That’s something that I was very excited and very proud of them about and now they’re in the first session of summer school. But we’re doing individual workouts and all of our guys are here and we’re just waiting for the freshmen to come in in the next week or so. So, we’ll have our full team by this time next week and start building our new team. And it’s exciting to get prepared for the next year, but also with some new faces to integrate into what we’re trying to do out there on the floor. It’s a good time for Carolina basketball.
Keck: What’s a typical day for you right now? Like what’s a typical offseason day for Hubert Davis?
Davis: It’s a lot! One of the things that I love about the summertime is skill development and individual workouts. That gives us really good, concentrated time — that all of us can be out on the floor and just try to help our guys get better. One of the things that I always say is for our team to get better, our individual players have to get better. During the summertime, that’s a lot of what we do. That’s one of the best parts of my job: being on the court and just spending that time with our players.
And then there’s recruiting and there are all different types of recruiting. Whether it’s the transfer portal or high school prospects, and now we’re dealing with camps and our basketball camp. We haven’t had it for the last couple of years because of COVID and now we’re getting ready to start our first session of basketball camp starting on Sunday (June 12th). So, there’s a lot of stuff going on and it’s kind of interesting. You almost feel like it’s easier or less hectic during the season, because you don’t have time for everything else. [In] Summertime, now everything else comes in and it’s just as busy, but equally as fun.
Keck: I’m glad that you mentioned academics, because I think people like getting glimpses behind the scenes with the team, but academics sort of fly under the radar when people are focused so much on what happens on the court. It’s so difficult for the players during their regular season and especially during the postseason, when you’ve got one round of the tournament, another round, another round, it’s difficult to stay up to speed on academics and for the players to do that successfully.
Davis: It is. One of the things that I talk about with the players a lot is: what is their job? What are their requirements and their job? Their requirement every day is to be the best that they can be on the court, in the classroom and in the community. That’s our standard here at North Carolina and we want our guys to excel and be the best that they can be in those three areas at all times, every day. And again, that’s always been a foundation point for this program. Even when I was in school and for the players that were before when I was in school, we always wanted to do the best that we could. At the end of the day, as talented as our players are, at some point they’re going to be old like me at 52 years old and have no chance of playing basketball anymore and they’re going to need to do something else.
But also something I like…for a lot of these kids, their identity is tied to only basketball. A great thing that we get to do is to show them that they have more in the bag than just basketball. They have so many gifts and talents. And so yes, we want basketball to work out for you, but there are a number of other things that you’re talented at, you’re gifted at [doing], and that is going to allow you to be successful and be joyful at what you do. Academics is a place for our guys to find that out and we are really excited about them having those types of experiences.
Keck: What was the biggest surprise for you in your first year as head coach? I spoke with a couple of people about the gap in experience between being right next to the head coach’s seat and then moving that one chair over as being a really significant move.
Davis: Well, it is a significant move. The biggest thing that I always say is that as an assistant coach, you’re always making suggestions — and as a head coach, you’re always making decisions. There’s a big difference between just making the suggestion and making a decision. But in terms of what has surprised me moving over and becoming the head coach at Carolina… nothing has surprised me.
I had always wanted to go to Carolina. I had always wanted to be a part of this program, even from when I was in elementary school. And to think that I had the opportunity to go to school here, to play here! My wife and I have raised our three children here, then I had a chance to be an assistant here for nine years and now I’m the head coach at Carolina. So, to wake up every day and be at a place and do something that I love at a place that I’ve loved my entire life is a real blessing and an honor and a privilege. And it puts me in a place of humbleness and thankfulness and appreciation for the experiences personally that I get to have.
Keck: That’s always great to see you out there, not just giving fans those indelible memories, but also just knowing watching you that you’re living the dream too. Right?
Davis: I am, yeah. Everyone comes up and goes, ‘I’m the biggest Carolina fan.’ And I was like, ‘well, not more than me!’ I’ve been a big Carolina fan since, you know, the first time that I saw my uncle Walter Davis play here in the mid-seventies. My blood is Carolina blue as well.
Keck: What’s been your best fan interaction in the last year? Just talking with folks around [the community]?
Davis: Somebody came up to me about a month ago and they said that our season last year was such a blessing to them. Not just because we had success out there on the floor, but our success out there on the floor coming off of COVID changed so many people’s lives. One fan came up to me and he said that it felt like we were back to normal again. Restaurants were packed, friends were back, experiences were back and running on Franklin Street was back. It brought back normalcy.
I thought that was really interesting, what he said, because I never looked at it from that perspective. The fans have been great all season, and the student support for this team, for this program, for me personally, for our coaching staff and this program has been nothing short of unbelievable the entire season.
Keck: I know you’re also inspiring other players as well, and right in the middle of baseball season. A very similar season arc where we were struggling a little bit in the middle of the season, turned it on right at the end and now rolling in the NCAA tournament. I know [head baseball coach] Scott Forbes has talked about how much of an inspiration you are.
Davis: Coach Forbes and I are really great friends. Obviously, we share our faith and I’m so proud of him and his leadership and his team. They are playing at an extremely high level and it’s fun to watch them get those types of experiences, testimonies and stories that our players were able to get this past year.
It’s so interesting [about] the narrative of both of our seasons…it’s the way you want your seasons to go. Everyone is up and down, unless you’re undefeated — so there’s always a little bit up and down and you always want to just continue to get better and better as opposed to peaking at the beginning. And then towards the end of the year, you’re more talented than the team you were at the beginning of the year. So, I like this!
Last year was a lot of newness. It was obviously a new head coach, new coaching staff, the way that we played on both ends of the floor, we made some tweaks and pivots and alterations, and it took us time, but we just kept getting better and better. And by the end of the year, we were really, really good. I would say the same thing for Coach Forbes and UNC baseball. Whatever happens for the remainder of the season, he has done an unbelievable job and I’m so proud of those student-athletes, what they’re doing on the baseball field.
Keck: Speaking with head coach Hubert Davis of Tar Heel basketball. Looking ahead to next season, I wanted to ask about name, image and likeness and that whole world. I didn’t ever really have the “aha” moment personally about how big of an impact this is having until when Duke announced that they’re creating this whole new position specifically to deal with NIL. I know Art Chansky was talking about this in the Sports Notebook today. That was my “aha” moment, the extent to which this is really reshaping the playing field. How are you navigating that? How is the staff at Carolina?
Davis: Well, I would say two things. Number one, I’m very thankful that our student-athletes are having an opportunity to be compensated for their name, image and likeness. It’s different than when I was in school. They didn’t sell our jerseys on Franklin Street and in student stores, it was just different. And so I’m in full support of all student-athletes being compensated for their name, image and likeness. Also, one of the things that I talked about last year is focusing on what is real — and yes, NIL is real, but what is the most important thing is our team and that’s where my focus is.
You know, we had a fantastic season last year. That being said, we still didn’t achieve a number of the goals that we set out for ourselves. We didn’t win a regular season ACC title, we didn’t win the ACC title and we didn’t win a national championship. So how can we build a foundation this summer to put ourselves in a position to be able to reach all those goals and get back there again and maybe have a different story? And so, even though NIL is real, [our focus is on] our preparation and how to make this team the best team that it can be — so that we can put ourselves in a position to reach all the goals that we set forth as a team.
Keck: You were a player in the 1990s, you get to watch players today. What’s the difference in the experience between being a player when you were and being a player now?
Davis: Well, it’s more year-round. I remember when I was in school, when the season was over…it was over. There were no individual workouts, lifting was optional. And maybe that’s why I was 155 pounds in college and I couldn’t play today. But our guys treat this profession as a job: the way that they take care of their body, the way they do strength and conditioning, they’re putting themselves in a position [to work with] the trainers. All these different types of stuff to make sure that they’re maximizing all their gifts and talents out there on the floor.
One of the things that I’ve told them, at times you’re going to have to take a little break. I feel like sometimes to get better, you need to get refueled, recharged and be able to catch your breath. But would I say that’s the difference. Practice when I played started on October 15th, there were no individual workouts and nothing before that. As soon as they get back for the fall semester, we’re doing a running program and strength and conditioning, and then we’re doing individual workouts. When practice starts, it’s almost like, ‘well, yeah, this is the first official day of practice, but we’ve really been practicing before in terms of our preparation.’ So, I would say probably that’s the difference.
Keck: Speaking with head coach Hubert Davis, we’ll wrap up and let you go. But as we’re five months out from the start of the season, between now and then, what’s your message to fans?
Davis: Well, just to continue to support all of our players, the same way that they did last year. It’s so funny… they’re kids. You know, they’re 6-foot-9 [or] 6-foot-10, they can run extremely fast, are extremely athletic and can jump out of the gym. But they’re just kids. And we’re really excited about our team. We’re excited about the opportunity to see if we can get better and improve. And even though it’s just the summer, we can’t wait to officially start practice and really get back into the season next year. And we’re really excited about the team that we can become and are excited about the experiences that we’re gonna have, the same that we had this past season.
Keck: You got baseball tickets for this weekend?
Davis: Well, I do not. I would go, but on Saturday, my youngest son — he turned 16 on June 13th. He’s a soccer guy. So on Saturday, I’m taking him to the Charlotte FC soccer game. That’s where we’re going on Saturday: we’re driving up to Charlotte and we’ve got really great seats. We’re going to meet the players. And so we’re going to the Charlotte FC game in Charlotte, and that’s awesome. Then on Sunday, we start camp.
So, if North Carolina makes it to Omaha… I’ve never been to Omaha. And so that could be a recruiting trip!
Keck: Hey, coach Hubert Davis. Thank you so much for being with us!
Davis: Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it.
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