The reigning ACC Player of the Year is back for more.

Star UNC guard R.J. Davis announced his return to Chapel Hill for a fifth and final season of college basketball on Wednesday morning. Davis is among the last class of players who can use the fifth “COVID” year of eligibility.

Davis put together an outstanding senior season for the Tar Heels, leading the ACC in scoring at 21.2 points per game and shooting 39.8 percent on three-pointers. The regular season saw Davis score 30 points three times, set new career scoring highs not once (36 points against Wake Forest) but twice (42 against Miami), the latter of which is the all-time scoring record for any player in the history of the Smith Center. Davis is the first Tar Heel to score 40 points since Harrison Barnes in 2011, and the first to do so in a non-overtime game since Tyler Hansbrough in 2008.

He became the 15th Tar Heel to win ACC Player of the Year and just the second – after Justin Jackson in 2016-17 – to make 100 threes in a single season.

Davis’ return means Carolina’s primary point guard rotation of last season – Davis, rising sophomore Elliot Cadeau and rising junior Seth Trimble – will all return to school.

 

Featured image via Associated Press/Nick Wass

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