There’s a major difference in this year’s UNC men’s basketball team from the groups of years past. Namely, it doesn’t have a 6-foot-10 rebounding machine who attracts as much attention off the court as on it.
There will never be another Armando Bacot in Chapel Hill. Thanks to his five years with the Tar Heels, his rebounding record is all but unbreakable. And Bacot’s gregarious nature in postgame interviews and other media sessions will be sorely missed by yours truly and others who cover Carolina. It’s why the 2024-25 Tar Heels – the first without Bacot since Coby White, Luke Maye and Cam Johnson were suiting up in the Smith Center – have given head coach Hubert Davis a different vibe.
“It’s a quieter team,” Davis said at the ACC Tip-Off in Charlotte on Thursday morning. “One of the things we’re working on is… the importance of not having the same voice as previous teams, but for this team, developing their own voice. That will come in time, but I really like the direction that we’re going.”
In Bacot’s absence, R.J. Davis has taken on the role of team leader and certified “old head.” At the team’s media day earlier this month, the reigning ACC Player of the Year and first team All-American noted how he is challenging himself to be more vocal on the court.
“It would be very easy for him to stay in that spot and be disconnected with the others,” Hubert Davis said. “And his ability to reach out and connect the three freshmen, the three transfers, the four walk-ons, and being able to bind us together as a team has been something that’s been really special to all of us.”
“He’s a coach that I can rely on,” R.J. Davis said of Hubert Davis. “He’s put so much belief in [me]. Sometimes I didn’t have that within me, but he’s instilled that in me… we’ve built a relationship that goes beyond basketball.”
Thanks to his ACC Player of the Year win last season, R.J. Davis’ No. 4 jersey is assured of a spot in the Smith Center rafters. Whether that jersey will be honored or retired hinges on the outcome of the coming winter and spring. If precedent holds, the Tar Heels will go as far as Davis takes them; his incredible regular season rocketed Carolina to an ACC regular-season title at No. 1 seed, but he didn’t make a single three-pointer in UNC’s loss to Alabama in the NCAA Tournament.
That loss – and the Crimson Tide’s appearance in the Final Four the next week – has left the Tar Heels wanting more. As Hubert Davis loves to say, his team has a “hunger and a thirst.”
“I hear the doubt. I hear the criticism,” said junior guard Seth Trimble, who briefly entered the transfer portal in the offseason before returning to Chapel Hill. “I don’t really listen to that. But I have a lot to prove for myself… there’s a lot of motivation going into this year.”
Motivation will be needed as Carolina navigates a typically treacherous non-conference schedule, one which sees the Tar Heels travel to Kansas in just the second game of the season. UNC also enters a Maui Invitational field alongside Auburn, Iowa State and two-time defending national champions UConn. And then there’s the visit from old foes Alabama for the ACC-SEC Challenge in December. Regardless of how soft-spoken Hubert Davis has deemed his team, the rematch against the Crimson Tide will be a fiery one.
For now, the Tar Heels are entering a busy preseason schedule, starting with the Blue-White Game in the Smith Center on Saturday afternoon. And if the team is perhaps quieter than in years past, it need not worry: the fans flocking into the arena after fleeing the UNC football team’s game against Georgia Tech in Kenan Stadium will bring plenty of noise.
Featured image via Todd Melet
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