Hubert Davis should do what he usually does. Smile.
He's had a fantastic week. On Saturday, his North Carolina Tar Heels went into the lion's den called Cameron Indoor Stadium and beat their hated rivals ... the Duke Blue Devils ... to win the Heels' first regular season ACC championship under his tenure. Two days later, he was voted ACC's Coach of the Year. The team is in the mix for a No. 1 or No. 2 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament and are on the short list of championship contenders.
This is quite an accomplishment considering where this program was sitting about 12 months ago.
Davis has enjoyed a very rollercoaster career in his nearly three seasons as the head men's basketball coach at UNC. He inherited a talented but flawed roster that lost in the first round of the 2021 NCAA Tournament. Remember that the 2019-2020 Tar Heels had a losing record and wasn't going to qualify for the NCAA tournament ... which was canceled due to COVID pandemic breaking. The following season saw a very talented freshman class, along with sophomore Armando Bacot, get the Heels back to the tournament. That season was played in empty arenas and the tournament was in the Indiana Bubble. They were part of it, but were spanked by Wisconsin in the first round.
Roy Williams abruptly retired and less than a week later Davis was the next head coach.
We all know how his first year went. Davis cobbled together some transfers to replace NBA bound Day'Ron Sharpe and controversial transfer Walker Kessler. The team suffered some embarrassing losses throughout the season and were living life on the NCAA Tournament bubble. A strong run to end the regular season ... including an epic win at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Mike Krzyzewski's final home game ... gave the Heels a life entering into the big dance. One of his transfer pickups -- Brady Manek -- was on fire. Like in 2021, the Heels were a No. 8 seed again, but this team wouldn't lose in the first round. In fact, they would beat Marquette, topple defending champion Baylor, UCLA, and Cinderella darling St. Peter's before facing off against Duke in one of the most anticipated games in tournament history. Davis won that one too, giving him two of the greatest non-title victories any North Carolina coach could ever want and a spot in the NCAA title game. UNC rolled out to a huge lead ... and that's where the fun would stop.
Kansas overcame the hot Heels and mounted the largest comeback in NCAA championship game history. Davis' Heels were so close, but left New Orleans with a title game loss. Davis' hiring looked like a slam dunk!
Last season began like Davis was set to take his place alongside Frank McGuire, Dean Smith and Roy Williams as another great Carolina coach. They were the preseason No. 1 team heading into the season because almost all of the key players from that championship game returned. Almost. Manek ran out of eligibility and it turned out that his absence was huge. The chemistry that seemed to the spark that late season run in 2022 just wasn't there in 2023. Last season made people think that the first half of the 2021-2022 season would be the norm and not that magical NCAA Tournament run.
The honeymoon was over for Hubert Davis. What was once great roster building and ability to get his team to work together turned into a team besieged by a lack of trust and cohesion. Davis' 2022 group were nicknamed the "Iron Five" due to their massive on-court minutes, but his aversion to using his bench in 2023 became a sticking point to fans and, apparently, his players. There was criticism over how he was using his roster and the style of play the Heels were using. At the top of the complaint list was the enigma known as Caleb Love, who can shoot you into games (like the Duke Final Four win) or out of games (like against Kansas two nights later). Fans ... and apparently players ... were ticked off that Love seemingly had a green light to do whatever he wanted but other players were pulled at the first mistake. Plus he lost twice to eventual ACC champ Duke and their brand new head coach, Jon Scheyer.
Which brings me back to 12 months ago.
That was when the Tar Heels saw that they weren't part of the NCAA Tournament. The first team since the tournament expanded in 1985 to be preseason No. 1 and miss the big dance. The team turned down an NIT bid (there's still some debate over who made that call) because Davis just wanted to move on to the offseason. Love, who hit one of the biggest shots in program history in that Final Four win over Duke, was told by Davis that it may be better if he finds a new place to play. Then many of those bench players who spent another season barely getting to play decided to wanted out. Guys like Tyler Nickel (Virginia Tech), Dontrez Styles (Georgetown), D'Marco Dunn (Penn State), Puff Johnson (Penn State), Justin McKoy (Hawaii) and Will Shaver (UAB) all left. Love would transfer to Arizona.
It was a mess and reminded many of the Matt Doherty situation in the early 2000s. Doherty, of course, was a UNC player from the 1980s who had a nice first season but quickly bottomed out. His third and final season saw his talented roster at odds with him, and he was promptly fired ... and Roy Williams was hired away from Kansas.
Twelve months ago, it looked like the Hubert Davis era would go down the same path. The optics were certainly there. The roster was gutted aside from mainstays Armando Bacot and RJ Davis and rising sophomores Jalen Washington and Seth Trimble. Everyone else left. But that's when Hubert Davis began to turn things around and start walking down the path to the ACC Coach of the Year.
Davis is known for his ability to convey family and caring during recruiting. He also seemed to understand the kind of players his program needed to succeed. He was able to lure junior Harrison Ingram ... a guy that Carolina recruited in high school ... to leave Stanford. He brought two ACC players to Chapel Hill: grad student Cormac Ryan down from Notre Dame and Charlotte native Jae'Lyn Withers. All the transferring allowed point guard Elliot Cadeau to reclassify and enter UNC a year early.
Those four brought toughness to Carolina, something that sorely lacked in 2023. They brought flexibility to the roster, as Ingram, Withers and Ryan have the ability to play different positions and do different things. All make a commitment to defense and became big chemistry guys. Along with Paxson Wojcik (Brown) and James Okonkwo (West Virginia), Davis completely rebuilt this roster both in terms of talent but a team that genuinely cares about each other.
That has shown this season. This team may be the best defensive team Carolina has had in decades. They are also insanely seasoned (Bacot and Ryan are fifth year seniors). The flexibility of the roster has allowed Davis to use his bench more than ever. He also looks more ... in charge ... than ever. His mid-season adjustments defensively shows he is able to diagnose and solve problems. The offense is much more fluid and prioritizes sharing the basketball as well as playing with purpose at a much faster pace.
This feels like his team and his program. He's adapting. That seems like a foreign concept to any Carolina fan. After all, most fans grew up with Dean Smith as the head coach and then Roy Williams stepped in. Our only real experience with unproven coaching was Bill Guthridge and Matt Doherty. Smith left Guthridge with a loaded roster and we all knew that he was an extension of Smith. We also knew that once Coach Gut retired, we'd pluck Ol' Roy from Kansas. Except we couldn't at first ... which led to the Doherty era.
Davis was groomed by Roy Williams, but he has his own experience of things. Davis played for Dean Smith. But he also played for Pat Riley and Don Nelson in the NBA. He coached as an assistant for nine years under Roy Williams, but he was an ESPN analyst for five seasons. His time at ESPN allowed him to visit, interview and be around other successful coaches and programs and see how they work. So while Davis fully understood the Carolina program, he also has witnessed things done in other ways.
This season it seems as if Davis is figuring out what he wants his program to look like on the floor. The skills and values he wants in his players and his teams. While Carolina fans expected Davis to hit the ground running to success (which he delivered with his Final Four run in his first season), we all needed to accept that there would be some growing pains as well. I brought up the two years before Davis' first season to set the backdrop of what this program looked like when he stepped in. The success of the 2016-2019 years (three No. 1 seeds, two title game appearances and a national championship) had faded fast (two missed tournaments, two No. 8 seeds) in the last four years.
That's what made Saturday night so sweet for Davis and people who were on the Davis bandwagon. Where he was less than one year ago to where he's at now is stunning and gives even the most skeptical Tar Heels fan reason to be upbeat about the future. The Heels will enter the tournament with high expectations like they did in the 2010s. The win in Durham flipped the narrative as Davis got to celebrate an ACC title with his team while Scheyer had to spend time talking to the media about licking wounds and finding answers. By Monday, Davis won ACC Coach of the Year while RJ Davis was Player of the Year.
That doesn't mean this is all fixed. He will lose Bacot after this season. RJ Davis could elect to not use his COVID season and play an extra year for North Carolina. Cormac Ryan will exhaust his eligibility. Harrison Ingram could decide to jump to the NBA Draft. And, of course, the transfer portal could suck somebody out of the program. Next year's team will really be his team. All his recruits. He brings in a great recruiting class in McDonald's All Americans Ian Jackson and Drake Powell. It feels like Elliot Cadaeu will come back for at least one more season. And, of course, the transfer portal allows for Davis to add some veterans guys to that mix.
The chatter of Davis' job security has died down considerably since 12 months ago (it will never fully go away). But he's got Carolina back to where it feels comfortable. A place that even Roy Williams struggled to get to in his final two seasons.
Which makes for a great weekend. An ACC regular season title. ACC Coach of the Year. He coached the ACC's Player of the Year. Won at Duke which secured a sweep of their rivals. Plus a byproduct of Cormac Ryan's 31 point game against the Blue Devils was a trip down memory lane for Davis' playing career. Ryan had Carolina's highest scoring game at Cameron since 1992 when Hubert Davis scored 35 at Duke ... which gave everyone a reminder of just how good ol' Hubert was back in the day.
What a week.
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