Even after four seasons in Chapel Hill, there are still things R.J. Davis’ Tar Heel teammates are learning about him. Like a nickname from his days playing AAU ball with the New York Gauchos: “the Milkman.” Davis earned that moniker in hard-fought games in the Bronx, the same basketball crucible which produced stars like Kemba Walker and Lennie Rosenbluth. Both of those men ended their collegiate careers with championships. Davis, who hails from nearby White Plains, N.Y., is hoping to do the same.
The likely ACC Player of the Year and first team All-American has come a long way from the undersized guard wearing rec specs on the basketball court. Well… he’s still undersized, but the specs are gone. To hear Davis tell it, he simply willed his eyesight to improve.
“I wore glasses for my whole life up until seventh grade,” he said. “And I was just like, ‘I’m not wearing glasses anymore.’ I literally just stopped wearing them, and I think my eyesight just got better. I haven’t worn them since.”
Maybe Davis’ trademark “three goggles” celebration after hitting a long jumper is a subtle nod to that history.
North Carolina guard R.J. Davis celebrates after shooting a 3-point basket against Miami during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game Monday, Feb. 26, 2024, in Chapel Hill, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Seward)
That image has become commonplace this season, as Davis leads Carolina in three-point percentage and threes made. He’s tracking to become the first Tar Heel to make 100 threes in a single season since Justin Jackson in 2017. Jackson is also the last Tar Heel to win ACC Player of the Year honors.
But even Jackson didn’t reach the levels of scoring Davis has this season. Davis has eclipsed 30 points three times, including 36 against Wake Forest and a Smith Center-record 42 against Miami. No Tar Heel had scored 40 in a game since Harrison Barnes in 2011. Davis’ outburst against the Hurricanes had his teammates – none of whom scored more than eight points – in awe.
“It’s just special every time I watch him,” said sophomore guard Seth Trimble. “The shots that he took tonight, the shots that he made tonight. Every time he put up a shot, I had no doubt in my mind it was going in. What he does is special, and it’s fun to watch.”
Harrison Ingram summed it up more succinctly after Davis’ 36-point performance against the Demon Deacons:
“Usually,” Ingram said, “if he makes two floaters in a game, I’m just like, ‘Give him the ball. Give him the ball and get out the way.’”
R.J. Davis shoots against Connecticut at Madison Square Garden in New York City on December 5, 2023. Davis scored 26 points in the 87-76 loss. (Image via Dakota Moyer)
Davis’ 21.5 points per game ranks ninth nationally. Earlier this season, he set a UNC program record by making multiple three-pointers in 23 consecutive games. In Carolina’s eight games between November 23 and December 29, Davis scored at least 20 points in all eight. He hasn’t scored less than 14 since before Thanksgiving.
And while the senior’s rise to prominence may have been a surprise to “experts” (who infamously left Davis off the first- or second-team preseason All-ACC squads), it’s no shock to his head coach. Hubert Davis wasn’t head coach yet when R.J. Davis signed to play at Carolina, but he has overseen his development into a bona fide star.
“I get to see behind the scenes,” Hubert Davis said. “I get to see what he does before and after practice, what he does in the summertime, what he does at midnight when he comes in and gets extra shots. And to see that play out, the shots that he took and made, those are shots that he practices all the time. To be able to have a front-row seat to be able to see him do that in a game situation on national TV, that’s just really cool.”
Tuesday night’s 84-51 win against Notre Dame – in which he scored a ho-hum 22 points – may have been R.J. Davis’ farewell to the Dean Smith Center. That he has the ability to come back for a fifth and final season is a testament to the current state of college athletics, but Hubert Davis said R.J. Davis’ year-to-year growth in Chapel Hill is a pleasant throwback.
“What R.J. is doing, this is the way college basketball used to be: growth,” said Hubert Davis. “I don’t even know my stats, but I think I got better each year. And that was college basketball. Every year you got better, every year you got stronger, every year you got more comfortable, every year you got more confident as a leader. It was continued growth on the court, off the court and in the classroom.”
R.J. Davis celebrates with teammate Armando Bacot after UNC’s 84-51 win against Notre Dame on March 5, 2024. (Image via Todd Melet)
R.J. Davis’ scoring average has increased by at least 2.5 points per game every season he’s been in Chapel Hill. His three-point percentage his freshman season sat at 32 percent. It hovered around 36 percent as a sophomore and junior before ballooning to 41 percent this season. His free-throw percentage started at an excellent 82 percent as a freshman and has somehow improved in every season since.
Davis does all that while standing at what can best be described as a generous six feet tall. It doesn’t stop him from sprinting into the lane and often taking heavy contact and crashing to the floor. But as Davis said after a physical win against NC State last weekend, that’s where New York comes back to him.
“Games like this where it gets chippy and teams are aggressive, I’ve dealt with my whole life,” Davis said, “because I played with Gauchos. We’d play aggressive teams. It’s definitely shaped me into the man I am today. Going out there and every day giving my all. Fearing no one.”
R.J. Davis inbounds the ball against Connecticut at Madison Square Garden in New York City on December 5, 2023. (Image via Dakota Moyer)
Which brings us back to a burning question: why did R.J. Davis’ fellow New Yorkers call him “the Milkman?”
“I was in the Bronx, playing at this local tournament,” he remembered. “This guy named ‘Dribble Machine,’ his name is Shane [Woney, of And1 mixtape fame]. I was out there getting buckets. I just remember him on the mic calling me ‘Milkman.’ He was saying it’s because I was always delivering.”
Featured image via Dakota Moyer
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