Hubert Davis’ first real test as the UNC men’s basketball coach came earlier than most fans may have expected. Davis and the Tar Heels found themselves locked in a shootout with the red-hot Brown Bears Friday night, with the Ivy League foes knocking down 21 of 35 shots in the first half to take a 50-47 lead into halftime. The Bears expanded that lead to six points in the second half and showed no signs of slowing down.
“It was times during the game I thought, ‘When are they gonna miss a shot?'” junior forward Armando Bacot told reporters afterward. “Toward the middle of the second half, it just started to get nitty-gritty, and it was just a street fight at that point.”
The Tar Heel offense was doing what it could, and performing well. Carolina shot 18-32 in the first half and continued to fill it up in the second, but stops were hard to come by.
In case you were wondering: no, this was not Mack Brown’s UNC football team.
On the offensive end, Bacot dominated the Bears down low, scoring 14 points in the first half and not missing a shot from the field. He finished with 22 points on 10-11 shooting.
But the night, and the eventual Tar Heel rally, belonged to R.J. Davis. The sophomore guard poured in a career-high 26 points and hit six of nine three-point attempts to spark Carolina’s second-half surge. Davis capitalized on Brown’s defense double-teaming Bacot on the block to get open for several clutch shots late. By the time UNC was shooting the game-ending free throws, the Smith Center crowd was chanting Davis’ name.
And why not? His outside shots helped the Tar Heels dodge a major bullet, as Carolina pulled away late for a 94-87 victory over the Bears.
𝗛𝗘𝗘𝗟𝗦 𝗪𝗜𝗡. pic.twitter.com/PYBp3EdwCO
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) November 13, 2021
“It felt great,” Davis said after the game. “I felt like my confidence was through the roof. I fed off my teammates’ energy and the crowd’s energy. Going from an empty gym to playing in a packed arena… it’s a big difference. It contributes a lot toward the end of the game.”
“I thought the crowd was awesome,” Hubert Davis said. “The student section was off-the-charts. I really believe that the crowd helped our guys play harder, with more energy… I would like them to be that loud every game.”
Davis’ enthusiasm didn’t extend to his team’s defensive performance, however.
“We’ve gotta get better on the defensive end,” he said. “We just weren’t good at all. There was a point in the second half that they were shooting 60 percent from the field. That’s hard to do!”
“They weren’t shooting the lights out, they were getting layups,” he added. True enough, Brown only shot six three-pointers in the first half. They shot 19-29 (65.5 percent) on two-point attempts in the first 20 minutes.
Defensive performances like Friday night’s won’t win the Tar Heels many games this season, a fact which wasn’t lost on Davis. His starting lineups are based on defensive performance, but it may be hard to choose five starters for Carolina’s next game at College of Charleston on Tuesday.
“We don’t have an identity on the defensive end right now,” Davis said. “You know what our identity is? We’re not playing defense the way that we need to play defense.”
With the close shave in the rearview mirror, the Tar Heels are now 2-0 and Davis is still batting 1.000 as the UNC head coach. Looking at positives, Davis told reporters he was “looking forward” to the team’s next practice after an off day on Saturday.
His players? Perhaps not.
Featured image via Todd Melet. For a photo gallery of the game, click here.
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