UNC basketball coach Hubert Davis haunted — and energized — by national title loss

North Carolina’s 1991 Final Four loss to Kansas antagonized Hubert Davis as a player so much that he said he repeatedly watched a replay of it annually until he, as an assistant coach under Roy Williams, was part of the Tar Heels’ 2017 national title team.

Now as the head coach, Davis doesn’t anticipate another 20-plus years of torment following Carolina’s 72-69 loss to the Jayhawks in the 2022 national championship game. Davis has watched a replay of this last loss, by his count, more than 20 times since April, even joking that he sometimes “naively thinks maybe it’s going to be a different ending.”

“We weren’t just in the championship game, we had a one-point lead with 1:30 to go and you could see it, it was that close,” Davis said. “So you have those emotions of disappointment. But it’s also why it’s different, because you’re also filled with so much joy and thankfulness for what those guys accomplished last year. And so that’s very different than the experience and feeling after losing in 1991. There’s tears here for this one, but there’s also a huge smile on my face at the same time.”

There’s plenty for Davis to smile about heading into Year 2 as the head coach of the Tar Heels. Four of Carolina’s starters, led by senior forward Armando Bacot, opted to return to school to chase that elusive title. He has his own display at the Carolina Basketball Museum, complete with the shoes he was wearing in the Heels’ Final Four win over rival Duke. Davis signed a contract extension in July that included a salary bump to a total worth $16.7 million when it ends in 2028. And UNC is the preseason No. 1-ranked team in both The Associated Press and Coaches polls.

Links to Tar Heels’ past

Most of the time, when Davis talks about Carolina’s tradition, the current players don’t have a tangible comparison. But the preseason polls allowed Davis to directly link his current team with the past.

When the school was informed of the polls before they were released publicly, UNC equipment manager Shane Parrish suggested they recreate the 1981 Sports Illustrated cover that featured legendary coach Dean Smith diagramming a play while his four returning starters — James Worthy, Matt Doherty, Jimmy Black and Sam Perkins — looked on behind him.

It was notable, not just because Carolina went on to win the 1982 national title, but for the omission of the fifth starter. Smith was hesitant to include Michael Jordan because he was just a freshman. Jordan mentioned in his Hall of Fame induction speech how much it bothered him not being included.

When Leaky Black, Caleb Love, R.J. Davis and Bacot dressed up for the photo shoot to stand behind Hubert Davis, that was the first time they learned of the ‘81 cover shot.

“Y’all appreciated it more than we did because we had no idea, that was more for the fans,” Black said. “I had no idea it was gonna blow up like that or I would have got a haircut or something.”

UNC promoted the photo through its social media accounts and it went viral. But it wasn’t completely the same shot. Davis is left-handed, but to make the shot work, he had to fake like he was writing with his right hand.

“The cool part for me was that I remember getting that Sports Illustrated in the mail and I remember seeing it as a little kid — I was 11 at the time,” Davis said. “It’s like a connection to Coach Smith. And I want to stay connected to him in everything that I see and everything that I do.”

He’ll be joined on the bench this season by another person with a link to Smith. Sam Combs, Smith’s grandson, is serving as a team manager.

Davis ready for the pressure

Carolina’s preseason ranking and expectations for the season bring a different kind of pressure than Davis faced a year ago. As a first-time head coach, he was taking over a team in the shadow of a Hall of Fame coach with three national titles.

And when the Heels stumbled early with big losses to Tennessee and Kentucky, then Miami and Wake Forest in ACC play, there were some UNC fans who openly questioned if he was the right hire.

“It was a year of newness and it was my first year and not just in reference to recruits, but to the players, to the players’ families, to the staff, to the athletic department,” Davis said. “We were all getting to know each other, and my hope is that every day people would get a clearer picture of who I am and what I’m about.”

Davis never questioned himself because he said he never expected it to be easy.

His resolve was shaped as a teenager, when his mother passed away within eight months of being diagnosed with cancer.

“At a very young age, I realized that things don’t go the way that you want them to go all the time,” Davis said. “There are going to be sunny days, but there are going to be rainy days. And, unfortunately, having gone through that experience, that’s the way that I look at things. So going into last season, I wasn’t under any idea that it would all go smoothly.”

Davis has a better idea now of how it will go. And he’s ready for the season’s vicissitudes, because he’s already shown he can adapt to them. It’s also why the players have complete faith in what he’s doing.

Bacot pointed out Davis took a risk last year by “completely scrapping” the old, familiar offensive sets and plays Carolina basketball has run for decades in favor of a more pro-style, ball-screen heavy offense midway through the season.

“It was risky, but it worked out,” Bacot said. “And it was huge for him to just show how great of a coach he is. Because it’s hard to really take a leap like this, especially in the first year, because it’s something that we were all used to.”

Managing expectations

Any hiccups Carolina will endure during Davis’ second season will likely stem from the expectations that come from returning four starters from a team that was 90 seconds away from winning the title.

ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas, who was a colleague of Davis during his time as a broadcaster with “College Gameday,” said Davis was well-equipped to handle those expectations because he doesn’t feel “pressure the way other people do.”

“He never wavered last year in what he thought was important and how he is going to do things, and I don’t think he’ll do that this year,” Bilas said. “... He wanted those expectations. He wanted to build North Carolina back into the contender that it is and to have people say, ‘Hey, they’re the best team.’ But he knows that, while it’s a wonderful thing, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not going to win you any games or hang you any banners.”

What will hang banners is learning from the past, and that’s something Davis said he’s thought about the 20-plus times he re-watched the championship game. The loss was one of the few times last season he felt like the Heels looked fatigued.

“The lack of depth that I played I think played a factor,” Davis said. “I think our guys were tired, especially in the second half, and it’s something that I think about all the time heading into this season. Is making sure that we have great depth.”

That may be the only big change Davis wants to see from the Tar Heels in Year 2. That, and for the final 90 seconds of the season to culminate in a national championship.