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R. J. Davis is barely 6 feet tall, but he is in some rarified air.
When Davis followed up his 12 points at Virginia with exactly 30 more against Miami, he entered the pantheon of great UNC stars who came before him and crossed the 40 rubicon, including George Glamack, Lennie Rosenbluth (five times of 40-plus), Billy Cunningham (48), Bobby Lewis (49), Charlie Scott (43 and 40), Kenny Smith, Shammond Williams, Harrison Barnes and Tyler Hansbrough as scoring at least 40 points in a game.
Davis’ 42 topped Hansbrough’s 40 against Georgia Tech as a freshman in 2006 for the most points ever scored in the 562 games played to date in the Smith Center. Shammond Williams also had 42 in a double overtime win at Georgia Tech in 1998. The all-time and home-court record is still held by Lewis’ 49 in 1965, the season that Carmichael Auditorium opened.
Lewis’ name and number were being bandied about when Davis reached 40 late in the game but seemed capable of getting 50 after canning four straight 3-pointers. Then the game against the hot-shooting Hurricanes got closer, and the fans and Tar Heels grew more interested in just winning and remaining alone atop the ACC standings.
We all watched Hansbrough get his “freshman 40” and Barnes his 40 in the ACC Tournament as a freshman in 2011. I hadn’t arrived at UNC when Lewis set the record that may never be broken but saw Scott score 43 against Wake Forest in 1970.
The year before, Scott had the most spectacular game in ACC tourney history when he followed up his 12 first-half points with 28 in the second half to lead a depleted team to the dramatic comeback win over Duke in the 1969 championship game, winning UNC’s and Dean Smith’s third straight title.
The Tar Heels had lost starting point guard Dick Grubar to a knee injury early in the game, and All-ACC forward Bill Bunting fouled out midway through the second half. That’s when Scott started calling for the ball and waiving his teammates out of the way so he could make his sensational run.
I remember the Duke cheerleaders, sitting in front of me on the baseline, making plans for who was driving to College Park the next weekend for the NCAA Sweet 16.
Not so fast, as Scott went wild and led his team to the 85-74 victory. The next week, as the Dukies sat home, Scott scored 32 including the buzzer-beater to beat Davidson and send Carolina to its third straight Final Four.
Scoring that many points is special when something really big is at stake, and R.J. Davis certainly has time to make that happen. For now, 42 is awesome and in the books.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
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