For Hubert Davis, the more things stay the same the more they change.

Carolina’s new head basketball coach has been very coy with how he is building his first team. Its foundation will be based on the same principles Davis learned as a youngster watching his Uncle Walter.

And with an entire staff of former Tar Heel players from three coaching tenures, whatever they do differently will still be called the Carolina Way. Especially if they meet the standard that’s been set.

Hubert allowed from his introductory press conference that the college game is changing and his teams will do some things differently than his Hall of Fame predecessor who admitted he was stubborn because he had won nearly 80 percent of his games over 33 seasons.

And maybe Carolina lucked out by losing big men Garrison Brooks, Day’Ron Sharpe and Walker Kessler, three bigs who didn’t spread the court and made the Heels easier to defend. Davis has replaced them with three transfers whom he loves for their versatility.

Justin McKoy was a reserve for two seasons at Virginia, Brady Manek is the best-shooting big man in Oklahoma history, and Dawson Garcia switched from Marquette after UNC recruited him two years ago.

“We needed more big men, more depth and more versatility,” Hubert said during his summer ZOOM conference. “Armando [Bacot] needed help and he couldn’t ask for three better players to join him.”

Sure, there will still be the two-post offense, but more high-low than Roy Williams played and more outside shooting from the big guys, which will take the pressure off the worst-shooting backcourt in the ACC last season.

And if Dean Smith’s old axiom comes true that the biggest improvement is between the freshman and sophomore years for highly recruited players, Caleb Love and RJ Davis would shoot better and Kerwin Walton could do more than just shoot.

And Hubert loves his new 4-star freshmen, 6’4″ D’Marco Dunn and 6’6″ Dontrez Styles, whom he says could grow to someday be among the best in UNC history. They feed Davis’ desire to have a team of “basketball players” who can all do the same things differently.

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