CHARLOTTE – North Carolina Coach Hubert Davis met with the media in the interview breakout room at the ACC Tipoff on Wednesday, and THI caught up with him for part of his session.
Here, the Tar Heels’ head man discusses many things about the Tar Heels:
*Davis always gets asked questions in environments like this, which includes the NCAA Tournament pressers and breakout sessions, about Dean Smith. The first question today in the breakout room was about what he learned from Smith.
*RJ Davis spoke about the team being grittier this season and getting back that as part of their foundation. Hubert Davis agreed that some of that was lost with lost year’s team, and was one of the reasons it didn’t have the kind of season so many expected.
“I think there are a number of reasons why we didn’t reach out full potential last year. You can go from a basketball standpoint of our inability to shoot the basketball, we weren’t a very good passing team – we were 14th out of 15 teams in terms of team assists. The discipline and the details toward the stretch.
“Of the 13 losses we had last year, nine of them it was a one-possession game; so that’s a rebound here, a box out there.”
Davis also said the players had a hard time handling “praise and prosperity” coming off the national championship game run the season before. He said they lost sight of what it took to be up one with a minute left and in position to win a national championship.
“So when RJ talks about grit, my guess is he’s talking about that in terms of understanding the hard work in your preparation and your play that actually allows you to put you in position to be able to experience the things we experienced two years ago.”
*Last year, perimeter shooting was poor for the Tar Heels, as collectively, they managed to convert only 31.2 percent of their 3-pointers.
“We were last in the ACC (in threes), it did not work out,” Davis said jumping in during the question about perimeter shooting not working out well last season.
“I won’t want shooters, we don’t need shooters, we need makers. There’s a difference between FGAs and FGMs. And there is a link between shooting percentages and our lack of team assists. Sharing the basketball, getting the ball to move, having everybody get a chance to touch it is a real big emphasis for us. But I’m interested in FGMs not FGAs.”
*Does Davis think he has enough shot makers?
“I do, I feel like we have enough makers. But I’d like to transition from feeling like we have enough makers to knowing we have makers.”
*With more shooters – and makers – on the floor for the Tar Heels, many of whom can hit from the perimeter and can also slash and score, Davis believes Bacot will have many more situations in which he’s guarded by just one player instead of being double-teamed like he was so often a year ago.
In addition, Davis says Bacot is approaching this season knowing it’s his last go-around, and that he wants to leave a mark personally and with the team.
*Davis told the story about when he first met Bacot at an event in Richmond when Bacot was 15 years old. Davis was impressed, got a sense of Bacot’s silly nature, but also his intelligence and that he might fit at UNC.
*Having an older team is something Davis sees that can help Elliot Cadeau work his way into things without having so much pressure, which would be the case if he was joining a much younger club.
“I think that’s huge. I think you have to have it. I think you have to have some legacy guys like RJ and Armando, and you have to have older guys like Cormac and Pax and Harrison that have been there before, and they’ve done it at a high level. And having that type of example around Elliot Cadeau and Zayden High, even young players like Seth Trimble and Jalen Washington is huge.
“I like diversity. I don’t want a team full of incoming freshmen and I don’t want a team full of transfers. I like a combination of a number of different things. And that’s one of the things that I really like about this team.”
*Jalen Washington finally had a normal offseason to improve his game, and Davis says it’s helped the sophomore forward a great deal.
“This is the first time in three-and-a-half years that he’s been able to train, not rehab. That’s a huge difference. There’s a huge difference between rehabbing and actually individual workouts and training… I’m excited to see his growth out there on the floor.”
*Cadeau is a ballyhooed freshman point guard many people penciled into the starting lineup right away, but he hasn’t been in that role just yet. Davis was asked how Cadeau is coming along and if he will end up starting. The head coach didn’t quite answer the latter.
“Elliot has been great for us. I’m so thankful that he’s with us right now. He’s unique. I’ve only seen in college somebody like him similar has been Kendall Marshall in terms of his ability not only to pass, but to get it to his teammate in the perfect position to do something on the offensive end.
“He brings a unique and special gift from the standpoint like he actually celebrates more passing the ball than he does scoring. It’s really rare in college now, or in basketball in general, is having that type of unselfishness.”
