Loss Forces Heels To Insulate Some Before Duke Arrives

ATLANTA – Nearly two years ago, when Hubert Davis’ first North Carolina team was preparing to deal with the circus that was Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s last game at Cameron Indoor Stadium, Davis made a crucial decision in how to approach the five days leading to the historic event.

The national attention UNC-Duke games get are always special, but this was on a different level given the winningest coach of all-time was doing it for the last time at home.

So, with UNC coming off a narrow home win over Syracuse, Davis decided to insulate his team. He couldn’t prevent them from seeing the hoopla building toward the game, but he could control the message within the walls of their locker room, meeting room, and practice court. He made the week entirely about them, and it worked, as the Heels won going away basically setting up their run to the national championship game.

Now, it’s just January turning into February, and third-ranked UNC’s game against the No.7 Blue Devils on Saturday evening at the Smith Center is just a big game, nothing more. And with the Heels coming off a surprising loss at Georgia Tech, the poor performance and result gives Davis a chance to insulate his team again.

“Definitely,” Harrison Ingram replied, when asked about insulating for a few days. “I think we’re going to come into Saturday with as much energy as we’ve had since probably the season started…

“We’re going to work on the little details; boxing out, playing harder, and just getting that chip back on our shoulder.”

Graduate forward Armando Bacot was a big part of that win in Cameron two years ago, and while he’s not drawing any correlations here, he does say getting the most out of what happened here Tuesday is paramount in moving forward.

“We’ve got to soak this in, we’ve got to really feel this one,” he said. “Then tomorrow move on. We have a big game coming up Saturday, so we’ve got to be ready.”

The Tar Heels will go into the game 9-1 in the ACC while Duke is 7-2. Zeroing in on what’s at stake is certainly part of the process. But this is also just the mid-point of league play, there’s time to jockey for positioning in the standings.

More pressing right now is the Heels add to who they are. It’s about absorbing and bouncing back, RJ Davis says.

“How are we going to respond,” he asked rhetorically. “Going to stay down and feel sorry for ourselves, or are we going to get back up and fight?”

A few days of blocking out the noise, as their coach says, and aiming their collective laser at their neighbors has been done not long before, and is the mission over the next few days.