To reflect on the year, Chapelboro.com is re-publishing some of the top stories that impacted and defined our community’s experience in 2024. These stories and topics affected Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the rest of our region.
A new jersey hasn’t joined UNC’s extensive collection in the rafters of the Dean Smith Center since Joel Berry II was honored in 2020. But now, one Tar Heel has punched his ticket to the rafters once his collegiate career ends: R.J. Davis. Davis put together an outstanding senior season for Carolina, one which saw the Tar Heels surge back into national relevance after a disappointing 2022-23 campaign. His No. 4 jersey will eventually sit next to Berry’s — but Davis’ career isn’t done yet.
Who’s the best player you ever saw in Chapel Hill?
For Tar Heel men’s basketball fans, that answer depends on the generation. Maybe it’s Michael Jordan, stealing the ball from Virginia’s Rick Carlisle and dunking it inside a raucous Carmichael Auditorium. Maybe it’s Tyler Hansbrough, smashing records on his way to perhaps the greatest four-year career in program history. Maybe it’s even an opponent, like Maryland’s legendary Len Bias.
But coming into 2024, for the most recent batch of Carolina fans, that answer could be scattered. Is it Armando Bacot? The charismatic big man certainly amassed awesome stats, but his game didn’t carry the flash of Jordan, Bias or even Hansbrough. Caleb Love? UNC’s one-time hero was now playing for Arizona after transferring. Perhaps not the most popular answer.
Now if you ask that question, every UNC fan can tell you about the time R.J. Davis scored 36 points against Wake Forest in January, the most by a Tar Heel in eight years. Or about the time Davis surpassed that performance with a 42-point outing against Miami, setting the all-time single-game scoring record for the Dean Smith Center. The arena opened in 1986.
Yes, as the kids say, R.J. Davis was in his bag in 2024. The shifty guard flourished in his new role for the Tar Heels, one without Love in the backcourt after three seasons together. The 2023-24 season saw Davis set career highs in points per game (21.2) and three-point percentage (39.8). He averaged three made threes per game after averaging fewer than two for his first three seasons.
R.J. Davis’ 42-point performance against Miami was just one highlight in an outstanding season. (Photo credit: Todd Melet/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Davis’ superb season earned the senior a treasure trove of awards. Here are the highlights:
- ACC Player of the Year (UNC’s first since Justin Jackson in 2017)
- Consensus All-America honors (the first since Jackson and the first UNC guard since Joseph Forte in 2001)
- The Jerry West Award, honoring the nation’s top shooting guard (the first Tar Heel ever to win the award)
The ACC Player of the Year win guaranteed Davis’s No. 4 jersey a spot in the Dean Smith Center rafters, making him the first player under head coach Hubert Davis to earn that distinction. R.J. Davis’ star turn helped Carolina win the ACC regular-season title and earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019.
But Davis’ season ended in disappointment, as the All-American failed to make a three-pointer in a game for the first time all season in a Sweet 16 loss to No. 4 seed Alabama. Perhaps motivated by that sour exit, Davis announced his return to Chapel Hill for a fifth and final collegiate season during the summer (Davis is part of the last group of college athletes who are eligible to use a fifth “COVID year”).
Davis has struggled in the first few games of the 2024-25 season, but it doesn’t take away the fifth-year guard’s career accomplishments. Once his playing days in Chapel Hill are over, everyone in the Smith Center will be able to look up and see his jersey. Tar Heel fans are hopeful it isn’t the only notable addition to the rafters from Davis’ time at UNC.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Seward
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.
