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CHAPEL HILL – Tuesday was far enough removed from the emotional whirlwind the North Carolina basketball players went through during their three-hour marathon victory over Baylor in Fort Worth, TX.
The Heels had come down from the combination of exhilaration, anxiety, and conquest after building a 25-point lead over defending national champion Baylor before blowing it entirely, and then using a patchwork lineup to knock off the top seed in the East Region in overtime to advance to the Sweet 16 for the 35th time in program history.
As much as the fans went through riding that mother of all roller coasters, it was even more stressful for the players.
“I was on the plane and took maybe a 20-minute nap, and the rest of the time I was up thinking about how that game was really crazy,” sophomore RJ Davis said Tuesday during a press conference at the Smith Center. “To go from a 25-point lead to crumbling and having different moments and different feelings (and) emotions.
“The game kept replaying in my mind. I was happy with the success and happy with the win that we pulled out.”
Armando Bacot said it wasn’t until the next day when he started feeling more at ease with how things played out.
“That was really crazy,” he said. “My anxiety was going crazy until about – I was watching the Duke and Michigan State game, and I started feeling a little good with the way the game was going. That’s about the time that I calmed down.
“But it was a crazy game, kind of like we was a sinking ship trying to stay afloat as long as possible until we got to shore. I’m just glad we won that game.”
Davis, Bacot, and Brady Manek met with the media Tuesday afternoon to discuss more about how the last few days have been since they knocked off Baylor, 93-86, in overtime to advance to the Sweet 16 where they will face UCLA on Friday night in Philadelphia. The winner will play either Purdue or St. Peter’s in the Elite Eight on Sunday, also in Philadelphia.
Here are the full videos of the players’ pressers Tuesday along with some notes and pulled quotes:
RJ Davis, Sophomore Guard
*RJ Davis’ phone was blowing up while he was scoring 30 points and grinding the Tar Heels past Baylor, only that he didn’t know it. The phone was in his locker inside Dickies Arena and was shut off.
But Davis’ big-time effort and UNC’s thrilling win captured the imagination of the nation, and seemingly everyone he knows reached out.
“I usually turn my phone off before a game, so once I turned it on, there was a bunch of notifications from Instagram and Twitter, text messages,” Davis said. “So, I couldn’t even respond to that many people I wanted to. It took a couple of days, actually, to get back to everyone. But it was a lot.”
His mom was the first person he spoke to on the phone. His father was at the game.
“I called my mom to speak to her because she wasn’t there,” he said.
*With a few days to reflect and absorb just how the win over Baylor played out, what does it say about the Tar Heels to recover from blowing that lead and winning in overtime even with Manek in the locker room and Caleb Love having fouled out?
“It was like the next-man-up mentality. Trez (Dontrez Styles) and Justin (McKoy) and Puff (Johnson) and the rest of the guys that stepped up in big-time moments and we needed that,” Davis said. “We had Brady and Caleb go down, so we had the next guy step up and contribute to this win, and that’s what they did.”
Armando Bacot, Junior Forward
*The win over Baylor was the second highly emotional game the Tar Heels played and won in a two-week span. The win at Duke was similar in a lot of respects. But the Baylor game was different for a few reasons, notably it meant more in the grand scheme of things because it was part of the NCAA Tournament.
“I would say not so much the Duke game because there was still more basketball to be played,” Bacot said. “That game was like we almost blew it and our season would have been over with, and just how crazy everything was. And still pull that game out.”
*Now that the Tar Heels experienced the thrill of defeat and agony of near-defeat, especially in the manner it played out, it would make sense if the players now fully understood the true meaning of survive and advance.
“Definitely,” Bacot said. “I feel like that showed us like there’s no time to fool around.”
*As much as UNC fans and some pundits in the national media have been highly critical of the officiating during Carolina’s meltdown, the truth of the matter is it was much more on the Tar Heels than the refs. The zebras played a part, but the Heels and their coach acknowledged Tuesday it was on them.
The Heels didn’t watch the first 30 minutes of the game on film when they’d built a 25-point lead, they watched the last 10 in regulation and overtime. So, what stood out that went wrong?
“Man, free throws, one,” said Bacot, who was 7-for-15 at the line in the game. “We missed a lot of boxout opportunities, too. They got a lot of offensive rebounds in the second half, especially when Brady and Caleb went out.
“Our press break, too. We weren’t doing the things that we usually are supposed to do. We watched (for) 45 minutes on film just seeing the mistakes we made, and we was really just shooting ourselves in the foot.”
As for what went wrong dealing with Baylor’s press?
“We all was coming to the ball,” Bacot explained. “Dontrez (Styles) was supposed to run long and he was creeping up, and then I was supposed to go more towards the middle.”
He also said the guards were supposed to be a T with one running an out like in football and the other breaking down. They just made incorrect breaks for spots and the ball, and it put them in quite a few difficult situations.”
Brady Manek, Graduate Forward
*UNC sort of feels like it’s getting a second chance in the NCAA Tournament. No Carolina team had ever blown a 25-point lead and lost a game, and nobody had ever done it in an NCAA Tournament game. But the Tar Heels were staring in the face of history, but managed to pull it out and move on. So, there’s a sense of good fortune among the players, but also getting a second chance as well.
“It’s special,” Manek said. “We’ve got a really good chance on Friday. We’re playing really well. A lot of the guys have their confidence up. We fought through that last game so I feel like we can fight through anything.”
*Even though Manek spent an hour and 12 minutes in the locker room after he was ejected waiting for the game to end, he was the Tar Heel who placed the “North Carolina” name onto the next round of the tourney. This is a tradition done in the locker rooms of each winner for each round, and always makes for a great video sent out by the schools. Manek’s was pretty cool given what happened.
“I didn’t have any idea,” he said about being the one who could place the name on the next line. “It was cool. A lot of good energy in the locker room and just a really good group of guys.”
*Manek was asked about what happened on the play that led to his ejection.
“Yeah, it was physical, it was a physical game,” he said. “There was a lot of pushing and shoving, a lot of physicality throughout the whole time. Yeah, I caught him from behind, hit him in the face. It was one of those ones where I don’t know if it was intentional, but I definitely, definitely got a piece of him.”
