How UNC basketball’s Hubert Davis approaches player meetings, transfer portal, offseason

The offseason started for UNC basketball coach Hubert Davis as soon as the Tar Heels got on a plane in Los Angeles on Friday to head back to Chapel Hill.

On that flight, Davis started watching film of games from throughout the season, which ended with UNC losing to Alabama in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. 

“I watch every game. I write down pages of notes from every game,” Davis said Monday on his final radio show of the 2023-24 season with play-by-play announcer Jones Angell.

“I never feel like — in anything that I’ve done — that I feel like, ‘OK, I got it.’ I think you should always be in a position of listening and learning. I go through every game, jot down notes – things that I like, things that I can do better.”

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UNC finished the year with a 29-8 record, including an outright ACC regular-season championship for the first time since 2017 and a No. 1 seed in March Madness for the first time since 2019. Hubert Davis was named ACC Coach of the Year and senior guard RJ Davis, who could return for a fifth season, was named ACC Player of the Year.

“I had player meetings (Monday) and every one of them said this was the most fun they’ve ever had,” Hubert Davis said. “And the sadness that they feel is we’re not playing together anymore.”

Last season, after missing the NCAA Tournament, the Tar Heels had seven players enter the transfer portal. Hubert Davis added seven newcomers ahead of the 2023-24 season, including five players from the portal. Notre Dame transfer Cormac Ryan and Stanford transfer Harrison Ingram were regulars in the starting lineup and vital pieces in a turnaround season.

So, with the offseason here, what are the goals of those meetings with each of the 14 players on the roster?

“Those are talks that we have all throughout the year. I meet with the players at least once a week, and we’re talking about everything,” Davis said.

“As the season ends, just to catch up and see how the year went for them – anything that they liked, things that they didn’t like — my expectations early on of what I expect of them coming back next year, and what I want it to look like. Those conversations were really good.”

Ryan, Armando Bacot and Paxson Wojcik have exhausted their eligibility, but the rest of the team could return. Roster continuity is trickier given the nature of the transfer-portal era, but Davis has started the process with an approach that proved to be successful this season.

“The process is just meeting with everyone on the team, just to see initial thoughts moving forward and then thinking about the guys coming back, the incoming freshmen, what we’re losing, what we need. Carolina basketball has always been this … it’s always had talent. It comes from different directions now, not just from high school; it comes in from the transfer portal," Davis said.

“At the end of the day, my job is to put the most talented team on the floor — the most talented team out there on the floor that, from a personality standpoint, also fits. That wants to be here, wants to be a part of this program, understands that this is a program that’s about the we, not about the me. That’s our approach this summer.”

Staff writer Rodd Baxley can be reached at rbaxley@fayobserver.com or @RoddBaxley on X/Twitter. 

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: UNC basketball, Hubert Davis start offseason