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CHAPEL HILL – North Carolina Coach Hubert Davis met with the media for his weekly spot on the ACC Coaches’ conference call late Monday morning.
Davis fielded questions about Armando Bacot, facing Louisville with an interim coach, and some thing about facing Duke and it being Blue Devils’ Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s last game in the Smith Center.
Above is the full video of Davis’ 10-minute stint, and below are some notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
*The Tar Heels head to Louisville later Monday afternoon for their game against the Cardinals at the KFC Yum! Center on Tuesday night. Louisville parted ways with former coach Chris Mack last week and is led currently by interim coach Mike Pegues, who actually coached the team during Mack’s suspension to start the season.
Davis said playing Louisville on the road is a big enough challenge as it is, but does having to face an interim coach add to the degree of difficulty?
“I think playing against Louisville is always tough,” Davis said. “They’re always great defensively, they’re very physical on the defensive end, they create a lot of turnovers, they always have great size and athleticism and depth, and that’s what they have this year.
“They can score in many different dynamic ways. They don’t have a particularly high scorer or go-to definitive guy on the offensive end, they just have a number of guys that can have big nights on the offensive end. And as I said before, they have tremendous depth.
“So, I know that they have recently gone through changes, but what hasn’t changed is the tradition of Louisville, and what hasn’t changed is the will and that want-to and the toughness and the talent that Louisville always has when they step on the floor, especially on their home floor.
“We’re excited about the opportunity to compete against a really, really good Louisville team, and it will be a tough challenge for us on Tuesday night.”
*Junior forward Armando Bacot is having a sensational season averaging 16.3 points and 12.1 rebounds per contest. He is shooting 57.4 percent from the floor and has 16 double-doubles in UNC’s 21 games. Twice, Bacot has grabbed 20-plus rebounds and seven times he’s scored 20 or more points.
Bacot’s maturity has been obvious, not just from a basketball standpoint, but as he has grown from a freshman to a junior. Davis believes the personal growth has contributed to the 6-foot-10 Virginian’s basketball development.
“I’ve told people that it’s been the natural progression of college basketball; there are so many guys that would have already left and tried to go to the NBA,” Davis said. “And just his growth as a basketball player and also his growth as a person has put himself in a position to be a leader of this team.
“Specifically for Armando, he has dreams and aspirations of playing in the NBA, and one of the things I told him is he has no chance of doing that until he’s able to make plays out on the perimeter, whether it’s shooting the basketball or handling the basketball. That’s an area that he needed to work on.
“I said, ‘You have to be a high motor guy in order to have a chance.’ This summer, every week he made a thousand threes, he worked on his ballhandling, and his energy and attention to detail, whether it’s been practice or a shoot around, has bled over into the game.
“So, it’s just his maturity, the seriousness at which he has prepared. Things have always relatively come easy to him. He’s a very smart and intelligent person; school has come easy for him. But, this year, just trying to excel in every part has been something that has been motivating for him and has driven him, and has put himself in a position where he’s one of the best players in the ACC and he is also doing it in the classroom. He was on the Dean’s List the first semester.”
*UNC must first play Louisville before coming home to host Duke on Saturday. Davis and some Tar Heels will be available Thursday to go more in-depth about that matchup, but the Carolina coach was asked about being a part of the rivalry as a player, and he surprised some by telling a story about former Duke great Christian Laettner, who played at Duke at the same time Davis was at UNC.
“There’s a lot of great memories from those rivalry games, but I’ll tell you this: my best friend from the 12 years that I played in the NBA is Christian Laettner,” Davis said. “We played together with the Washington Wizards, we played together with the Dallas Mavericks. We just enjoyed not only being teammates but spending time together after practice. Not every practice, but most of the time.
“He would either go over to my house or I would go over to his, and we both loved played ping pong. We were both competitive. And we would just play ping pong all day after practice. My wife and his wife got along. And to think of us from a competitive standpoint not liking each other while we were here (in college) to later in our life really enjoy our friendship and enjoy being around each other and enjoy playing together, I just think it’s really cool.
“So, when I tell people that its Christian and that I have a great relationship with him, people are so shocked. But we do, we have a great relationship, and I love the friendship that we have and the time that we got to play together in the NBA.”
