Now, Hubert Davis has something to show to them.

The second-year Carolina basketball coach loves to talk about things in real time. Not necessarily what has happened in the past or what will happen in the future. What is happening NOW.

He may have that, despite it coming in a fourth straight loss for his team. The Heels were getting blown out at Virginia Tech, one of the toughest venues in the game, and it did not look like they could recover.

It may have been Davis getting hotter and hotter as a 10-point halftime deficit swelled to 18 midway in the second half. Or it might have been when RJ Davis was called for a phantom foul under the basket.

But there it was – without the sore-shouldered Armando Bacot and up-and-coming sophomore D’Marco Dunn, who broke his left hand in practice the day before. RJ Davis, Caleb Love, Pete Nance and freshmen Seth Trimble and Tyler Nickel started to fight – through screens, block-outs, and the pain of likely losing another game.

Win or lose, we saw the essence of sport come out in our very-likely-spoiled Tar Heels, who have now split their last 10 games dating back to the symbolic NCAA championship loss to Kansas. They were trapping like they hadn’t before, moving without the ball like they rarely have and fighting for everything they could on the court.

The deficit got as low as three points late in the game, and they would have needed some extra help from the Hokies, who are very good this season. It really doesn’t matter right now, but it may well have an effect on these Tar Heels in January and February.

With Bacot leading the players on the bench standing and cheering, something might have been born or reborn on this afternoon in Blacksburg. Now, with a solid week of practice before the next game, the home ACC opener against Georgia Tech on Saturday, there is an opportunity for this team to understand what it has to do to have a chance to be as good as the last team finished last season.

“Film doesn’t lie,” Hubert Davis also likes to say. After the 80-72 loss, he said, “One thing I know is my players and I like to fight and that’s what we’re going to do, fight.”

And now they have something to show them that they can.

 

Featured image via UNC Athletic Communications/Maggie Hobson

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