Ad Disclosure
Why Duke could become a tipping point in Hubert Davis’ tenure at North Carolina
Published:
CHAPEL HILL, NC – As the North Carolina basketball team returned to campus following a demoralizing 107-85 loss to Wake Forest on Jan. 7, 1965, it was greeted by a dummy of coach Dean Smith hanging from a tree in effigy.
Smith was in his 4th season with the Tar Heels and his team dropped to 6-6 after its 4th straight loss.
Fast forward 18 years to 1983.
A group of Duke boosters identifying themselves as the “Concerned Iron Dukes” were so dissatisfied with their team’s 3rd-year coach after back-to-back 17-loss seasons that they began circulating a petition urging athletic director Tom Butters to have him fired.
Like Smith, Mike Krzyzewski battled through his early inflection point to become the winningest coach in men’s college basketball history.
This is not to suggest that UNC’s current coach, Hubert Davis, might be on a similar trajectory to those 2 Hall of Famers. Any comparison to either besides that they’re all connected to the best rivalry in sports, would be ridiculous.
And yet as Davis prepares his team for Saturday’s showdown at Cameron Indoor Stadium, he finds himself at a similar career crossroads.
At 13-9 with 3 losses in the past 4 games, his Tar Heels are in serious danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the second time in 3 seasons. It’s a developing situation that has amplified whispers from the dark recesses of internet message boards to the mainstream media that Davis might not be the right man for the job.
Davis hasn’t done anything to quiet the chatter with comments that make him seem either oblivious to his situation or stumped as to how fix things.
“I focus on us,” he said during a media availability on Thursday before adding, after a lengthy pause, “we’ll be ready on Saturday.
“… The most important thing for us is to become the best team we can possibly become and at the end of the day, not only live with but be happy with the results.”
The buzz surrounding his future will only become louder if UNC gets hammered by its No. 2-ranked rival with the entire sports world, including ESPN’s College GameDay, watching on Saturday night.
As if there wasn’t already enough heat on Davis, the temperature was turned up even higher in December when UNC raised the profile – along with the budget – of its football program with the hiring of 6-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick as its new coach.
Football might drive the financial bus these days, but basketball is and always will be UNC’s core identity.
That’s a big part of Davis’ problem.
It’s bad enough that his Tar Heels are flirting with the NCAA bubble for the 3rd time in his 4 seasons since taking over for another Hall of Famer, Roy Williams. The fact that Duke has made a similar transition from Krzyzewski to his understudy Jon Scheyer with little to no drop-off makes UNC’s struggles all the more difficult to accept.
While Scheyer has constructed a roster with size, depth and a talented core of 5-star freshmen supplemented by the veteran presence of 3 complementary transfers, Davis’ Tar Heels are overloaded with perimeter players and an uncharacteristic lack of inside presence.
Their lineup resembles a doughnut. Solid on the outside with a gaping hole in the middle, making it difficult to score or defend around the rim, rebound and win when their perimeter shots aren’t going down. You don’t have to know who Sean May is to know this is now how UNC basketball typically operates.
The contrast between the teams and their coaches promises to be magnified once they get together on the same court.
It’s a contrast that makes Saturday’s game a potential tipping point for Davis.
There probably won’t be any angry petitions seeking his dismissal circulating around Chapel Hill if his team doesn’t win. And effigies are frowned upon these days. With or without, a loss – especially a bad one – could turn out to be the beginning of the end of his tenure.
On the other hand, beating the Blue Devils on their home court for the 4th time in the past 5 years could just as easily become the catalyst that helps UNC and its coach change the direction of their still-salvageable season.
“We could literally have a flip of the switch,” senior guard RJ Davis, who is 3-1 in his career at Cameron, said. “It starts with our preparation for Saturday.”
That would normally sound like an unrealistic expectation. In UNC’s case, it’s happened before.
Faced with a similarly dire postseason forecast at about this point in the 2022 season, the light bulb suddenly came on for Hubert Davis the coach, RJ Davis the player and the rest of the Tar Heels. Ignited by a win that spoiled Coach K’s farewell party at Cameron, they rode the wave all the way to the national championship game — ending Coach K’s career in the process in the Final Four.
It’s doubtful that this team, with its fundamental flaws, has the DNA to make that same kind of run. But realistic goals are still within reach. Goals that would take at least some of the heat off their embattled coach.
Showing a little fight would be a good start. And Cameron might be just the right place for it to happen. Because while the frenzied atmosphere of Duke’s home court has been known to get the best of even the best of teams, including No. 1 Auburn earlier this season, the mayhem almost always has the opposite effect on UNC.
It usually brings out the best in the Tar Heels.
If it does this time, the Cameron Crazies might not be the only ones they silence.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
