North Carolina Coach Hubert Davis met with the media via zoom Tuesday afternoon in advance of the Tar Heels’ game at No. 10 Indiana on Wednesday night as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.
Davis fielded questions for nearly 20 minutes regarding his team’s shot selection, lack of assists, RJ Davis and Caleb Love taking more than half of the team’s shots, the expected atmosphere at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, legendary IU coach Bob Knight and more.
The No. 18 Tar Heels are 5-2 after dropping consecutive games in Portland to Iowa State and Alabama in the Phil Knight Invitational over the weekend. The Hoosiers are 6-0 with a win at Xavier.
The game tips at 9:15 and will air on ESPN.
Above is video of Davis’ Q&A session, and below are a few notes and pulled quotes from what he had to say:
Note: Davis’ wifi connection was not good, so the video is faulty but the audio is fine.
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*Injury update: Davis said that Armando Bacot (ankle) and Leaky Black (ankle) practiced today and are expected to play tomorrow night.
*Caleb Love and RJ Davis have attempted 51.4 percent of UNC’s shots from the field and are combined at 40.6 percent conversion rate. The rest of the team is at 52.7 percent. In fact, Love and Davis have attempted 12 more shots than the rest of the team, but made 20 fewer. Davis said he’s had conversations with them the last two days about their shot selection.
“Some of the shots I’m a hundred percent comfortable with, some of the shots I’m not,” Davis said. “We’ve talked about it.”
And what has been addressed in those conversations, especially with Caleb in particular, since he can get some of those shots later in possessions?
“Just getting the shot that not only one person wants, but getting a shot that everybody agrees upon, that everybody wants,” Davis said. “Just understanding the difference between a good shot and a bad shot, and that’s not only a discussion that I’ve had with RJ and Caleb, but I’ve had with the entire team.
“I count bad shots as turnovers. And just the importance of consistently taking high percentage shots practice and practice, practice before and after practice, and shots that consistently you shoot in the game.
“I also know some of the shot selections are because they want to make something happen. Sometimes in those situations, the best thing is to create, and to wait for a better shot. And that’s something that I’ve had discussions with everybody, and specifically Caleb and RJ.”
*The Tar Heels fell from No. 1 in the AP poll to No. 18 this week in the single greatest drop from the top spot in rankings history. They have only played well in a few halves this season, and just haven’t performed near expectations they had for themselves. Davis says his message to the club right now has no gray area.
“My message to them has been real, has been truth,” Davis said, chuckling. “I’ve said this before, I’m not really a big comparison type of person. I don’t compare this year to last year, this year’s loss to last year’s loss.
“The games against Iowa State and Alabama, the energy and the effort, I thought our guys played really hard and in both games gave us multiple chances to win. And we didn’t make the plays on either end to be able to finish the games out.
“Those are things that we talked about. But we’re a good basketball team, we played really well out there, we just didn’t finish it out.”
*Indiana ranks No. 12 in the nation in bench usage with 10 Hoosiers averaging at least 10 minutes per game. Carolina is still ranked No. 362 out of 363 Division One teams in bench usage, and that includes the 48 minutes Puff Johnson got Sunday in the four-overtime game in which Pete Nance was in foul trouble. Davis was asked if this could be a factor, but disagreed with the premise of the question.
“First of all, D’Marco (Dunn), Puff (Johnson), and Seth have consistently gotten minutes off the bench,” Davis said. “And so, I’ve consistently played eight-to-nine guys the entire season. So, I don’t understand that question.”
*Indiana basketball has a long and proud tradition. It has long been one of the Fabled Six, along with UCLA, UNC, Kentucky, Duke, and Kansas, but some national pundits believe IU has dropped out of the group because it hasn’t been nationally relevant that often since the early 1990s.
That said, Assembly Hall gives the Hoosiers one of the great home atmospheres in the nation. The fans are passionate and will push their team. Davis says the environment Wednesday night will not be a factor for his team.
“In terms of the environment, I played in college, I played in the NBA, a game is a game,” Davis said. “Whether it’s at Indiana or at home, this is North Carolina. We went to the Final Four last year (and) there were (72,000 fans) in the Superdome.
“I know they’re excited about having the opportunity to compete against a really, really good Indiana team and looking forward to the challenge.”
*UNC ranks No. 249 nationally in assists per game, handing out just 12.3 per contest, with 42.4 percent of its field goals attached to an assist. This concerns Davis, and he has addressed it with the team.
“That’s something that obviously Carolina Basketball we pride ourselves on ‘good-to-great’ in terms of passing the basketball, and being able to distribute and create for others,” Davis said. “So far it has been difficult.
“I think teams, compared to last year, they’ve trapped us more, in terms of coming off ball screens and really putting an emphasis on keeping our guards out of the paint. So, we’ve got to do a better job of moving the basketball, and getting into the lane and drawing defenders, and hitting the open guy, and having more ball movement with the combination of player movement in our halfcourt sets.
“So, that’s something that we have talked about a lot in terms of moving the basketball more. And it’s an area we desperately need to improve.”
