CHAPEL HILL – Trust is at the core of anything that functions positively. It marks our daily thinking so often we usually don’t cognitively quantify whenever it’s applied.

It is literally in the seeds of our successes.

And there are no shortages of examples of great institutions, organizations, or people embracing trust as one of the cornerstones to their achievements. In them, in others, and in the process.

This is true in athletics as well, and sometimes most obvious. So, as North Carolina prepares for its fifteenth game of the season, a Wednesday night date at rival NC State, it will carry a barrel of trust on its short bus ride 25 miles east of Chapel Hill.

The Tar Heels have become a shining example of what unquestioned faith in each other within a small organization can do, how it can lift up the whole, and often renders success. How else can one explain the No. 7 Tar Heels recently slamming the door shut at crunch time in a trio of Quad 1 wins over Oklahoma on a neutral floor, and this past week at Pittsburgh and Clemson?

Having unwavering belief in each other is at the core of Carolina’s ascent as a team.

“Something that we have talked about is in those stretches down the stretch that the discipline and the details on both ends of the floor how important it is to tighten the screws,” UNC Coach Hubert Davis said Tuesday at the Smith Center. “Really be on point defensively, getting stops, getting rebounds, defending without fouling. And on the offensive end, just sheer execution, making sure we’re running the plays.”

So, when the Heels headed to the bench during timeouts in the aforementioned games, Davis heard a beautiful sound. It was his players talking, communicating, and recalling the plans from practice.

“We play this game stop, score, stop,” Davis said, referring to practice. “And in the huddle, they were like, ‘let’s get a stop, score, stop,” or,’ let’s get a score, stop, score.’ So, they’re taking what we’ve been talking about in practice and trying to put it in a game…

“I think there’s great trust among the teammates, and I think it’s building every day.”

Davis doesn’t play mind games with his players, and as he calls it, is direct with them about everything. But he has no issue finding outside examples to which the players can relate to infuse them with what he’s trying to teach them.

For example, Davis, who played 12 seasons in the NBA, used a clip of Kevin Garnett when he was with the Boston Celtics answering questions about why he and his teammates were so effective on the defensive end in a particular game.

“He says, ‘I was only where I was supposed to be because I knew my teammate was going to be where he was supposed to be,’” Davis explained.

“And I showed that to the team, I said, ‘that’s where we’ve got to get to. You’ve got to trust that I’m going because you know your teammate is going to do his job.”

The Tar Heels clearly understand the message and, by many of their accounts, have fully embraced it.

It is part of who they are together, and shows up at its strongest when games are on the line and the Heels get defensive stop after defensive stop, as they did in putting the clamps on the Sooners, Panthers, and Tigers.

“(Davis) talks about the Celtics with Doc Rivers and their philosophy called ‘Ubuntu,’” UNC graduate guard Cormac Ryan said Tuesday. “One of the way he describes it is, ‘I’m where I need to be because I know my teammate’s where he needs to be.’ It’s kind of that chain reaction of being able to trust where your guys are knowing that they have your back, and you have their back.”

None other than the Dalai Lama speaks of trust as integral in happiness and success.

“To be contented human beings we need trust,” he has said many times, and posted on his Facebook page in 2013.

In the May-June 2020 edition of the Harvard Review, an article titled “Begin With Trust” ran with a subhead that read, “The first step to becoming a genuinely empowering leader.”

The gist of the piece focused on trust in an organization, stressing the importance of authenticity.

And on PhychologyToday.com, which describes itself as “an American media organization with a focus on psychology and human behavior,” it offers this definition of the importance of trust and how it works:

“Trust—or the belief that someone or something can be relied on to do what they say they will—is a key element of social relationships and a foundation for coooperation. It is critical for romantic relationships, friendships, interactions between strangers, and social groups on a large scale, and a lack of trust in such scenarios can come with serious consequences. Indeed, society as a whole would likely fail to function in the absence of trust.”

So, Davis devises the plan, he and the coaching staff teach it, the players learn it, and then go onto the court and execute it. But they do it as five parts forming one.

Ryan does his job because he knows RJ Davis will do his, and he is confident Seth Trimble will handle his role, and he has no thought about Harrison Ingram not executing his assigned responsibility, and he isn’t worried about Armando Bacot doing his either. And so on.

Looking for a common thread among championship-caliber clubs, this is always embedded into their very fiber.

“It’s a pretty strong force that you can develop in a team,” Ryan said.

Carolina has a long way to go this season. Appearances suggest everything is moving in the right direction, and that the Tar Heels are creeping toward mastering the intangibles necessary to have a special campaign.

The late-game closes over Oklahoma, Pitt, and Clemson are clear indicators the trust box has been checked. And it’s a pretty big one.